Raymond, I agree with Robert, it is better to do some simpler tests first, to get used with the new language and environment, before you dive into communicating with Office, which is more advanced .Net stuff.
About the compiler error, unfortunately as I told you Wolfgang made a very small typo, he told you to use System.Exeption, instead of System.Exception. Did you try to specify the code like that as we told you:
CATCH ex AS System.Exception
If you did that and still get compiler errors, can you please show us the exact error messages?