How do I: Get a selected ID in the Desk View?

I have a iPart that is very simple.

It displays the selected ID by using the following code in the ASCX file: 

<%= IWC.Utilities.GetCurrentUserID() %>

This works great in the web view and returns the number exactly as expected. But in the Desktop View it returns a much longer string of numbers and letters. My guess is that it is encoded in some way. How do I go about getting the plain value?

TIA

J