Hmm... well, making forward progress... kind of. The http header response I am getting back has this info available via $response->fresh_until etc:

Fresh Until: 1/16/2008 16:16:15
Current Age: 0
Freshness Lifetime: 9/26/1972 17:00:00
Is Fresh: 1

I've added this to the request:
$request->header("Pragma" => "no-cache");
$request->header("Cache-control" => "no-cache");

I even tried: 
$request->header("Cache-control" => "max-age=-1");
[download]

No luck... any http guru's out there? How can I control what the age is and ensure that my request rejects this doc that for some reason has a riculously large lifretime? I'm assuming the issues is whith my http header since my browser sends back the correct data every time... hmmmpf.