Strings......and how to join them

[skimask]

Really, all I want to do is take a constant i(2 bits) add a variable in t(3 bits) add another variable in h(3bits) and make it all one long(ish) variable of 8 bits, so I end up with string = iittthhh. I guess I could "join" them in the serout2 command (serout2,portpin,mode,i,t,h) but that didn't seem to work very well for me

You might have wanted this intead of what you had:

SEROUT2 portpin, mode, [ ( ( i << 6 ) + ( t << 3 ) + h ) ]

The way you had it, all it would do would send out 3 different bytes of value corresponding to i, t, and h.