Turns out the hard drive was failing so that was the issue. After 10 days in the shop I'm up and running - better now than before.
Sorry for the dealy in getting back on this but no computer = no internet.
Thanks
When I click on the stamp icon to open mac mail it bounces one time and then stops. The console log says:
===== Saturday, May 30, 2009 4:59:19 PM US/Pacific =====
dyld: Symbol not found: _SEC_OctetStringTemplate
Referenced from...