Thank you for the thorough reply. Now I get it. It still makes me uncomfortable to store a bogus value, but I can see there is a reason for doing it. I have had zero experience with data warehousing and didn't think of that at all.

It really wasn't personal. I would have had the same response to anyone else. What you said contradicted something I have always known.

BTW, I was succeeding in this industry when you were still in school. As this proves, though, there is always more to learn.

OK, thanks, I'm glad you picked up something from it.

I don't know when you started, but I got started in 1987, and won some awards for systems automation with a set of FoxPro apps from the U.S. Dept of Agriculture in 1989/1990. My first boss was Mike Antonovich, who was a fantasic first boss.