Yun Telnet Client - Have never felt so incompetent.

Greetings, all. I'm a newb, and have only been playing with Arduino for a few days. I need to create a USB-HID to Ethernet conversion program. I started with a Mega, Ethernet Shield and USB Host Shield. I was able to get the Ethernet working on its own, and the USB-HID working on its own, but I can't get the shields to work together. (Note - if anyone can suggest an Uno or Mega solution that provides both Ethernet and USB Host, I'd be forever grateful.)

My next pursuit is trying to do it with a Yun. I'm able to communicate with the board via IDE over Ethernet, and I've tried various Bridge library code examples, but I can't get anything to work. Right now, no matter what sketch I try to load in (assuming it's a Bridge sketch) I get:

Unable to connect: retrying (0)...
Unable to connect: retrying (2)...
Unable to connect: retrying (3)...
Unable to connect: retrying (3)...
Unable to connect: retrying (4)...
Unable to connect: is the sketch using the bridge?
Unable to connect: is the sketch using the bridge?

At the moment I'm just trying to use: Examples->Bridge->Bridge from IDE.

I'm at a total loss here. Can anyone advise me or direct me to any documentation that might help? I've gone through all the Yun documentation I could find on the website, but none of it seems to address the issues I'm having or offers any setup information that I might be missing. I've gone through the web interface on the Yun but don't see anything that appears helpful. I've searched forums but can't find anything that quite addresses my issue.

One thing I found suggested that the "Unable to connect" messages are related to the Console, but the sketch I'm using doesn't even use the console (or the Serial. for that matter.)

So, to all the kind, generous, helpful folks out there, ANY assistance would be greatly appreciated.

You are using Serial Monitor, right? Did you select the right serial port from Tools->Port? I think it doesn't work when using a network port.