i should have known that hanselman was right. i use a lot of tools he has on the ultimate tools list (slickrun and cropper being my favorites). i recently paved a machine and decided not to get the adobe products.
instead of pdf writer from adobe, i’m using www.primopdf.com (free)
and instead of adobe reader, i’m using foxit. it is awesome and lean. starts up in a jiffy. yes, i said jiffy. easy to use and serves its purpose well. just another plug for it. i’m adobe pdf free (for now) although i can say if i see the need to create a pdf form, i may look at foxit software for their other versions!