diff --git a/HISTORY b/HISTORY
index dc8dfb9..7a19684 100644
--- a/HISTORY
+++ b/HISTORY
@@ -1,3 +1,15 @@
+0.18.2 2009-12-21
+* Enabled support for keyf on group
+* Signification GridStore performance improvement (thx., Sunny Hirai)
+* Support :query option for Collection#distinct
+* Support :finalize option for Collection#group
+* (0.18.1) ObjectID#generation_time returns a created_at timestamp.
+* Deprecated Command#group running as a JS eval; should now be run as a command.
+* Deprecated Cursor#next_object for Cursor#next_document
+* Character encoding fixes for C extension
+* Enforce 4MB limit on document creation
+* Simplified connection pooling code
+
 0.18.1 2009-12-05
 * Fixed issue with negative dates in Ruby 1.9
 * Minor refactorings for C extension and BSON classes
diff --git a/lib/mongo/connection.rb b/lib/mongo/connection.rb
index fdf7041..3b5300e 100644
--- a/lib/mongo/connection.rb
+++ b/lib/mongo/connection.rb
@@ -70,7 +70,6 @@ module Mongo
     #               this is the number of seconds to wait for a new connection
     #               to be released before throwing an exception.
     #
-    #
     # === Examples:
     #
     #  # localhost, 27017
@@ -106,7 +105,10 @@ module Mongo
 
       # Pool size and timeout.
       @size      = options[:pool_size] || 1
-      @timeout   = options[:timeout]   || 1.0
+      @timeout   = options[:timeout]   || 5.0
+
+      # Number of seconds to wait for threads to signal availability.
+      @thread_timeout = @timeout >= 5.0 ? (@timeout / 4.0) : 1.0
 
       # Mutex for synchronizing pool access
       @connection_mutex = Monitor.new
@@ -294,11 +296,6 @@ module Mongo
 
     private
 
-    # Get a socket from the pool, mapped to the current thread.
-    def checkout
-      obtain_socket
-    end
-
     # Return a socket to the pool.
     def checkin(socket)
       @connection_mutex.synchronize do
@@ -337,14 +334,14 @@ module Mongo
     # Check out an existing socket or create a new socket if the maximum
     # pool size has not been exceeded. Otherwise, wait for the next
     # available socket.
-    def obtain_socket
+    def checkout
       connect_to_master if !connected?
       start_time = Time.now
       loop do
-        if (Time.now - start_time) > 30
+        if (Time.now - start_time) > @timeout
             raise ConnectionTimeoutError, "could not obtain connection within " +
               "#{@timeout} seconds. The max pool size is currently #{@size}; " +
-              "consider increasing it."
+              "consider increasing the pool size or timeout."
         end
 
         @connection_mutex.synchronize do
@@ -364,13 +361,13 @@ module Mongo
       # Ruby 1.9's Condition Variables don't support timeouts yet;
       # until they do, we'll make do with this hack.
       def wait
-        Timeout.timeout(@timeout) do
+        Timeout.timeout(@thread_timeout) do
           @queue.wait
         end
       end
     else
       def wait
-        @queue.wait(@timeout)
+        @queue.wait(@thread_timeout)
       end
     end
 
diff --git a/test/threading/test_threading_large_pool.rb b/test/threading/test_threading_large_pool.rb
index 037ebdc..a600ce8 100644
--- a/test/threading/test_threading_large_pool.rb
+++ b/test/threading/test_threading_large_pool.rb
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ class TestThreadingLargePool < Test::Unit::TestCase
 
   include Mongo
 
-  @@db = Connection.new('localhost', 27017, :pool_size => 50, :timeout => 1).db('ruby-mongo-test')
+  @@db = Connection.new('localhost', 27017, :pool_size => 50, :timeout => 10).db('ruby-mongo-test')
   @@coll = @@db.collection('thread-test-collection')
 
   def set_up_safe_data