if there is another way to do this .. or is this pretty much it?

The sentence can look like this .. item in bold is the text needed

05/24/06 16:00 -- Start working on #1

VB Code:
  1. iPos = (InStr(sTemp, "-- ") + 3)                    ' START POINT

  2. iPoe = InStr(iPos, sTemp, " ")                      ' END POINT

  3. sTemp = Trim$(Mid$(sTemp, iPos, (iPoe - iPos)))     ' GET TEXT