my feeling is that i'm missing one "simple" piece.

i opened SQL Serv. Mgmt Studio

drilled down to Security/Logins to ReportExecution.

right-clicked & opened properties.

re-input the password to double check that it was/is correct.

are there "server roles" or "user mappings" that need to be checked?

both my pc (where reporting services is installed) and the server are on the same domain.

oy!