Greetings, davidpiney.

A few comments and suggestions for your consideration.

1. dd copy makes an exact copy of things; if you dd a LiveDVD
onto a usb, I think
you may create a read-only device, which won't save things.

2. From your read-only dvd or a read-only usb, you should be able to
use the built-in 'Install to Flash Disk' function to create a working
read-write LiveUSB, preferably using a fresh usb as the target.