Cetin,

I think it's also thinking in FoxPro (a hard habit to break, esp. since I still do some). I figured since I was passing it the variable to convert into, I didn't need to tell it again the name of the variable to be assigned. It still feels verbose to me but it's getting better.

>>Cetin,
>>
>>I tried your suggestion and that worked like a charm. Thanks for your help. I keep hoping that one day I will get the hang of when to use a cast but it looks like I still have a long way to go.
>>
>
>Hi Linda,
>I think in your case the problem was not in casting. You declared the variables but left them unassigned.
>Framework would warn you at compile time when there isn't an implicit cast and require you to add the explicit casting.
>PS: I check return types in intellisense to decide if I should cast. When I miss compiler reminds:)
>Cetin