diff --git a/src/java/com/samskivert/util/ConfigUtil.java b/src/java/com/samskivert/util/ConfigUtil.java
index 86435427..0bab558f 100644
--- a/src/java/com/samskivert/util/ConfigUtil.java
+++ b/src/java/com/samskivert/util/ConfigUtil.java
@@ -427,8 +427,8 @@ public class ConfigUtil
         throws IOException
     {
         InputStream input = sourceURL.openStream();
+        BufferedReader bin = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(input));
         try {
-            BufferedReader bin = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(input));
             PropRecord record = new PropRecord(path, sourceURL);
             boolean started = false;
             String line;
@@ -448,7 +448,7 @@ public class ConfigUtil
             }
             return record;
         } finally {
-            StreamUtil.close(input);
+            StreamUtil.close(bin);
         }
     }
 
diff --git a/src/java/com/samskivert/util/PropertiesUtil.java b/src/java/com/samskivert/util/PropertiesUtil.java
index b04904d1..0d2a9ce2 100644
--- a/src/java/com/samskivert/util/PropertiesUtil.java
+++ b/src/java/com/samskivert/util/PropertiesUtil.java
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
 
 package com.samskivert.util;
 
+import java.io.BufferedInputStream;
 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.FileInputStream;
 import java.io.IOException;
@@ -27,6 +28,8 @@ import java.io.IOException;
 import java.util.Enumeration;
 import java.util.Properties;
 
+import com.samskivert.io.StreamUtil;
+
 /**
  * Utility functions related to properties objects.
  */
@@ -175,33 +178,45 @@ public class PropertiesUtil
     }
 
     /**
-     * Loads up the supplied properties file and returns the specified
-     * key. Clearly this is an expensive operation and you should load a
-     * properties file separately if you plan to retrieve multiple keys
-     * from it. This method, however, is convenient for, say, extracting a
-     * value from a properties file that contains only one key, like a
-     * build timestamp properties file, for example.
+     * Reads and parses the supplied file into a {@link Properties} instance.
+     */
+    public static Properties load (File from)
+        throws IOException
+    {
+        Properties props = new Properties();
+        BufferedInputStream bin = new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(from));
+        try {
+            props.load(bin);
+            return props;
+        } finally {
+            StreamUtil.close(bin);
+        }
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Loads up the supplied properties file and returns the specified key. Clearly this is an
+     * expensive operation and you should load a properties file separately if you plan to retrieve
+     * multiple keys from it. This method, however, is convenient for, say, extracting a value from
+     * a properties file that contains only one key, like a build timestamp properties file, for
+     * example.
      *
-     * @return the value of the key in question or null if no such key
-     * exists or an error occurred loading the properties file.
+     * @return the value of the key in question or null if no such key exists or an error occurred
+     * loading the properties file.
      */
     public static String loadAndGet (File propFile, String key)
     {
         try {
-            Properties props = new Properties();
-            props.load(new FileInputStream(propFile));
-            return props.getProperty(key);
+            return load(propFile).getProperty(key);
         } catch (IOException ioe) {
             return null;
         }
     }
 
     /**
-     * Like {@link #loadAndGet(File,String)} but obtains the properties
-     * data via the classloader.
+     * Like {@link #loadAndGet(File,String)} but obtains the properties data via the classloader.
      *
-     * @return the value of the key in question or null if no such key
-     * exists or an error occurred loading the properties file.
+     * @return the value of the key in question or null if no such key exists or an error occurred
+     * loading the properties file.
      */
     public static String loadAndGet (String loaderPath, String key)
     {
diff --git a/src/java/com/samskivert/util/TermUtil.java b/src/java/com/samskivert/util/TermUtil.java
index c90baea7..063a60e5 100644
--- a/src/java/com/samskivert/util/TermUtil.java
+++ b/src/java/com/samskivert/util/TermUtil.java
@@ -31,6 +31,8 @@ import java.util.regex.Matcher;
 import java.util.regex.Pattern;
 import java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException;
 
+import com.samskivert.io.StreamUtil;
+
 /**
  * Provides access to the very platform specific concept of the terminal
  * (ie. vt100, xterm, etc.) in which our code is running. Bear in mind
@@ -100,10 +102,11 @@ public class TermUtil
      */
     protected static Dimension getSizeViaResize ()
     {
+        BufferedReader bin = null;
         try {
             Process proc = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("resize");
             InputStream in = proc.getInputStream();
-            BufferedReader bin = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
+            bin = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
             Pattern regex = Pattern.compile("([0-9]+)");
             String line;
             int columns = -1, lines = -1;
@@ -124,12 +127,17 @@ public class TermUtil
             if (columns != -1 && lines != -1) {
                 return new Dimension(columns, lines);
             }
+            return null;
 
         } catch (PatternSyntaxException pse) {
+            return null; // logging a warning here may be annoying
         } catch (SecurityException se) {
+            return null; // logging a warning here may be annoying
         } catch (IOException ioe) {
+            return null; // logging a warning here may be annoying
+        } finally {
+            StreamUtil.close(bin);
         }
-        return null;
     }
 
     /** Converts the string to an integer, returning -1 on any error. */