>So it sounds like you have the web service publishing to IIS (and not VS's simple web service, Cassini) - is that correct? When you recompile any .NET web application and redeploy it, IIS will unload and reload the app domain your web app. is running in and a recompile when the first hit comes in to the site. This could be the long delay you're seeing.

That is correct, I'm publishing to IIS on my local workstation. I'm not sure how to make it work with the VS built in thingy. I'm stymied right now on setting up my development environment. I'd really like to set this up so that I can step into the web service in the debugger and see what's happening, but I haven't been able to as yet. If you have advice on that, I'd be grateful. I don;t have to use IIS on this development machine, if doing something else will make my life easier.