Whoa. That is insanely awesome, man. Thanks!
The light bulb finally went on! Especially the bit about static. That makes a lot of sense, and now that I look at my code I can see that's exactly what's going on.
PS: You should be teaching this class. I've been banging my head against the wall for over a week here. Every time I asked my instructor to explain things, I just couldn't grasp it for the life of me. He's a good teacher, in that he obviously cares and tries really hard... plus he clearly knows what he's talking about... but I just could not get a handle on what he was saying.