Simple Mysql Help Needed

Hey guys, This is my first post to these forums. I've just recently started playing around with visual basic and used to be pretty familiar with it quite a few years ago. I still remember bits and pieces but I'm quite rusty. The problem I'm having right now is "object reference not set... " here is my code:

Public Sub DoLogin()
Dim ds1 As DataSet = New DataSet
Dim da1 As MySqlDataAdapter = New MySqlDataAdapter
da1.SelectCommand.Connection = New MySqlConnection("server=localhost; user id=root; password=; database=dhe") *******This is the line that throws the exception
da1.SelectCommand = New MySqlCommand("SELECT * FROM emp_db")
da1.Fill(ds1, "emp_db")
FrmMain.Show()
FrmMain.DataGridView1.DataSource = ds1
FrmMain.DataGridView1.DataMember = "emp_db"
End Sub


I'm just trying to connect to a mysql database and fill a dataset then display the table in a datagridview. Any Help would be greatly appreciated!!