Another convention! All global variables should be named ala: gMyVariable

...although globals were thought an indicator of poor design back in my day... Hasn't stopped me lately; I don't even bother defining variables half the time. And memory? How big a deal did that used to be?! And how great is Google?! I don't know VisualBasic, but I know what it *should* be able to do, I google it, and there's a code example! No more manuals. No more learning. We're in a golden age now!!!

If you're looking for another related project to spend time on, you could start collecting xml race files and cobble together an 'automated test harness'. Essentially, have your project cycle through a series of these files (that would ideally represent everything you would encounter in a real-time environment and base decisions on within your program) and verify that the program behaves as it's meant to. That is, instead of making a bet it outputs to a text file noting the action it would've performed. Once all the xml files are processed you compare the text file produced to one that contains the correct results.

A pain to set up, but it quickly and easily highlights logic bugs and allows you to verify you haven't made any unintended changes when you edit.

Oh! Use revision/version control too. It's all coming back to me now. ...make it stop! Make it stop!