I am wondering what gives here. doing some research on 'how to activate Nurms' i came across the fix. When using NURMS you need to have an edit poly object in order for NURMS to be active. I did not realize that there is a difference from the Edit poly from the modifier list versus right clicking the object and getting edit poly from the transform quad.
What is the difference between Edit Poly object versus Edit poly modifier? i honestly though they were the same.