Thanks for taking a look. I certainly don't expect anyone to spend any time on this. I was hoping someone would know where I was being tripped up.
I'm already using the brute force method and it works just fine. Another solution probably wouldn't shave but 3 seconds off the run time.
I've just been persuing something a bit more elegant because...well, who knows? Call it professional curiosity. Although I'm not a programmer, I enjoy the creative process of discovering 'better' ways of doing things.