Thanks for the help everyone I appreciate it. I tried several of the suggestions and wouldnt'cha know it, the index scan was the fastest. One of the suggestions...

Thanks for the reply but after reading it I was still confused (no surprise there), so I re-read my own post and I had a typo that probably explains your...

SSCrazy, Thanks for the reply. I think you answered my question. I understand about equality not working with wildcards, but since it compiled and ran I thought it might work.

And...

Thanks for the replies. I was able to get both examples to work and since I have not been using CTE it was a good excuse to read up on...