problem with -u option

[Robert Silge]

This is my first attempt at using rsync, and I think I basically have it
figured out, except that something is awry with updating.

My situation is that I have a desktop in another city that I will use once a
week or so when I am there. I have a local computer that most work gets done
on. I wanted to set rsync to run nightly with a cron job to sync data, and
then promptly run again in the other direction so as to get the most update
files on both computers. I thought the following would work, but it doesn't
seem to.

rsync -auvz --progress -e ssh account at distantcomp:~/rsync-testing /home/rob

rsync -auvz --progress -e ssh ~/rsync-testing account at distantcomp:~/

The receiving computer gets its files overwritten, whether they are newer or
not. The only thing I can think of (other than the more likely fact that I
made some boneheaded mistake) is that the date command seems to be in a
slightly different format. They are two minutes off, but I've waited far
longer than that, but the CST vs. CDT thing might make a difference?

Tue Apr  9 00:55:51 CST 2002 -local comp
Tue Apr  9 00:58:19 CDT 2002 -distant comp

Thanks for any advice, this seems like an amazing program, and I think
eventually it will do exactly what I need.

-Rob