>Hi Jim,
>
>I declared the object reference using 'local' keyword. I though the method would do the cleanup for me upon exit. Is there any explicit rules I should follow when dealing with object references, though it is a local one?
>
>Regards,
>juan

Juan,

The local variable object reference will go out of scope when the method finishes. Either something is stopping the method from finishing or there is some other object reference floating around somewhere.