the date you are getting is the value of date 0
the date is actually the number of days elapsed since day0, or dec 30, 1899
when you say
mydate = date
the compiler should show you
mydate = date()
if it doesnt put date() , with parentheses it indicates a problem - you may already have a variable, or a field on a form called date, and your app is using this instead of the date function. this is why we try to avoid using reserved words as field names.