I forgot to mention in that last entry - when I first saw the subject line NiMH I thought of that series of books 'The Rats of Nimh', about a super-intelligent breed of rats that had escaped from a laboratory and were running a university for mice and rats... has anyone else read them? I was given the first one (about the intelligent mouse that learns to write as a kid then hears of them) in English class, then tracked down all the ones I could find.