"I take it you'd like to send one command off to do its work while you start another one?"
Kind of. I want to be able to choose a task, (theres going to be several.) and while it performs it (in unix its known as sending the command to "the background") i want to pick a task and have it run but while it does, i want my shell back. Your comment did help a lot. so ill just take it from there using your code as a reference, thanks a lot. When im done with this script ill be sure and post it for all my fellow Unix junkies out there.. =]