OK I did just now realize that I was not compressing the image in question enough. It was around 340k. I compressed it down to around 47k. I did have it at 256x256 the whole time... just never thought to decrease the file size. The problem is greatly reduced as would be expected... it still takes a "hit" but it is like a 10th of a second so it is not as visible as before.
I would convert it to a PNG and will at home... just don't have a tool to do that with my system here at work.
Just providing this as additional information / observation
