I did right after posting the first post and it was running through all the cases over and over. tweaking the case numbers resulted in the code not printing to the sections altered. i thought it could be the pushbuttons in need of debouncing, so i've been looking into that. i wrote a program that worked in lighting up the leds when the button was pressed with out a case switch and everything worked. this is why i think its wither a bracketing issue or a problem with my case syntax.