" i did get 'ERIC MCNAMARA' printed to the display, in the code i had the link to, i changed it to (try) and get the date sent from rtc to the lcd, and after i changed and tinkered with it, i got the black boxes, "

Fine then please revert to your old code; check out the flow like you were advised; and keep trying till you display the time on the LCD. You just have to keep track of the MCU code so that it always is executing defined program statements and never gets locked up in a loop or create a stack overflow. This you can check out in a simulator in one step mode. OK I am over simplifying the whole thing - let me stop here and allow you to fight and win over the problem.

Raghu