I have a CCK that has some required info that the user must fill out. I will not go to far into it but the problem seems to be with this:

|Please choose... (that is pipe there in front)
UAB
Auburn Univ
Univ of Alabama
etc...

Now when the user fills this in initially it is fine. The problem arises when I use Views to create a list of items that correlate to one of the options. I do this with an exposed filter. Now I have the "|" pipe there so that the user must choose one of the schools when filling out the CCK. Well when the view fires off and "Please Choose..." is the default filter I get this error message:

warning: mysql_real_escape_string() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given in database.mysql.inc on line 402.

Using my awesome deductive powers (using google and a reading the error) I have found this is because "|Please Choose..." is not a string value and when I change the default filter to a school the error goes away.

Can I fix this but still have the value required in the CCK form?

TIA,
JD