[jQuery] Help with jquery.autocomplete and extraParams

[Shawn]

I'm using the autocomplete plugin found at 
http://www.dyve.net/jquery/?autocomplete.

I'm trying to set a second parameter to be passed to my serverside code, 
and am getting odd behavior.  I'm stumped on this one.

Here's the offending code:

$("#dialogTMLeader").autocomplete(
   "employee_autocomplete.cfm",
   {
     extraParams : { d: $("#dialogTMDate").val() }
   }
);

If I do an alert before this, $("#dialogTMDate").val() shows me the 
value in the text box (a date from the jquery.datepicker plugin).  But 
when my serverside code is called, the "d" parameter does not have any 
value.  Going into the autocomplete code and putting an alert in the 
makeURL() method I get the correct value in the alert, but not if I do 
an alert for options.extraParams["d"]

function makeUrl(q) {
        var sep = options.url.indexOf('?') == -1 ? '?' : '&';
        var url = options.url + sep + "q=" + encodeURI(q);
alert($("#dialogTMDate").val());
        for (var i in options.extraParams) {
         url += "&" + i + "=" + encodeURI(options.extraParams[i]);
        }
        return url;
};

I think this is setting a string when the autocomplete is initialized, 
and not getting reset when the lookup happens.  I can see there is an 
setExtraParams() method, but I can't figure out when I need to call this.

Any tips how I do this??  Thanks in advance.

Shawn