battery dies after a few hrs ??!! help..

[fongo]

Hi everyone. Thanks for your reponses on the previous thread. To recap, my battery dies after a few hrs at rest. Originally, I thought it was the battery and/or the voltage regulator. It turns out that after doing the battery / alernator test (i.e. disconnect battery after starting car and see if it still runs or stalls), the car continued to run so I assume the alternator is still good (??) unless the voltage regulator is bad and this test can't distinguish the problem.
Could it be the battery cable running from battery to starter or the other one? The car starts fine when everything is charged so I didn;t suspect this.
I also noticed the wire plug going to the alternator (top) seems a little old and unsheathed. I put electrical tape on it to see if problems goes away.
Any other possibilites and/or recommendations?? ( I hate to bother people to jump start me every time!)
Thanks.
fongo