followup info. i was running into 2 problems with the code as written above.
1) when restarting the app, and in particular restarting the logging service, the starter.astreamusb.initialize code would generate a java null reference error. i would have assumed since it was a public variable associated with the starter service it would still be "valid"
2) when terminating the app, the starter.usb.close line would generate an error saying it was ignoring the event since the service was already destroyed. don't quite understand that one.
anyhow, here is how i had to mod the 2 subroutines to get everything to work.
[logger service]
Sub Service_Create
dim a as asyncstreams
Starter.AStreamUsb = a
Starter.AStreamUsb.Initialize(Starter.usb.GetInputStream,Starter.usb.GetOutputStream,"astreamusb")
Service.StartForeground(1,notes)
End Sub
Sub Service_Destroy
' Starter.usb.Close
' Starter.AStreamUsb.Close
End Sub
so, what's up with 1) and 2)? i'm glad i got everything to work, would just like to know why the other setup didn't work!