Dates converted incorrectly - incorrect offset?

I've been working on converting events created with the event module to Date+CCK and always am a few hours off after the conversion. I've tried every timezone setting I can find, and none are quite doing the trick. I noticed this bit of code in the module, but am not good enough at php to subtract a few hours.

      // If the original event had the wrong offset, the 'UTC' value it
      // created will also be wrong, correct it here.
      if ($event_node->start_offset != date_offset_get($start) || $event_node->end_offset != date_offset_get($end)) {
        $adj = $event_node->start_offset - date_offset_get($start);
        date_timezone_set($start, timezone_open('UTC'));
        date_modify($start, $adj .' seconds');
        $adj = $event_node->end_offset - date_offset_get($end);
        date_timezone_set($end, timezone_open('UTC'));
        date_modify($end, $adj .' seconds');

Does this function help my problem, and if so, can any one help document how to use it?

Another option might be a field in the date copy module to add/subtract X number of hours.

Thanks for the help!