thanks, chipmunk. that, indeed was it. the place I pulled this code from loops through and destroys and recreates the socket when it talks to the server - i.e. there are no persistant connections. So there it was not an issue. wasn't thinking it all the way through when I pulled it out to test for this next application. =)
"A man's maturity -- consists in having found again the
seriousness one had as a child, at play." --Nietzsche