Help with signing key

[Robert Hoffman]

Perhaps someone could lend me a hand. I am trying to sign a key to that it is 
trusted.

I start with 'gpg --edit-key john'
then I verified the fpr by phone.
then I entered 'sign'
gpg asks me if I really want to sign the key. I respond with 'yes'.
I then enter my passphrase.

And here's where I run into trouble. I get the following output over and over 
again when gpg tried to sign the key:

gpg: waiting for lock (hold by 3418 - probably dead) ...

I'm at a loss here. I don't have any other programs using gpg and I don't 
have a process 3418. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Thx in advance,

-Rob Hoffman