lol - John-Marc, I know just enough to be dangerous and learn every step of the way.
I have the error reporting on so I can see if there are issues. I tried to replace the code like you guys recommended, then I got an "unexpected "{" on line 2 (of this example):

1 if (strlen($_POST['first_name'])
2 {
3 header("Location: error.php");
4 exit;
}

Thank you for your help - I've only been dealing with php since December and I just get completely lost at times. (Been trying to read "php and mysql for dummies", and then "php bible" - what a read that is! lol