it turned out the first flash drive that i was using was bad. when i got the new pc (dell optiplex 960) from the manager, i tried to set it up last night. sure enough, the other one worked! once it was done loading up, i created a recovery flash drive (getting smarter by the day i am), and tried it on the laptop. it worked there too, albeit with a little persuasion. today, went over to the shop and set up the permanent brain. loaded 
up the latest java, universal gcode sender, and my favorite version of sketchup (8, it works for me). everything works just fine now. got the desktop here to work with, the laptop for other times, and a permanent brain (and monitor, both free). even the emergency off button got a permanent location too! we'ems back in bizness!
