losing string concatenations

Question

I am trying to build out a gallery of photo items in javascript from facebook. The gallery is presented in a table with 5 images in each row. Every time I try to add something on to the outtable variable it empties

my code-

function getImages(){
            var $outTable ='';
            FB.api('/me', function(response) {
                 var query = FB.Data.query('SELECT aid, owner, name from album WHERE owner={0}', response.id);

                 query.wait(function(rows) {
                    var x = 0;
                    for(x in rows){
                        $outTable += '<table id="album" celpadding="0" cellspacing="0">';
                        var images_query = FB.Data.query('SELECT aid, src_small FROM photo WHERE aid={0}', rows[x].aid);
                        images_query.wait(function(image) {                             
                            var y = 0;
                            while(y < image.length){
                                var row_count = 0;
                                $outTable += '<tr>';
                                while(row_count < 5){
                                    if(image[y] != undefined){
                                        $outTable += '<td><img class="draggable" src="'+image[y].src_small+'" width="'+image[y].src_small_height+'" height="'+ image[y].src_small_width+'"></td>';                                          
                                    }else{
                                        $outTable += '<td></td>';
                                    }
                                    y++;
                                    row_count++;
                                }
                                $outTable += '</tr>';
                                //console.log($outTable);   
                            }
                            console.log($outTable);
                        })

                    x++;
                    }
                    $outTable += '</table>';
                 });
                console.log($outTable);
                 $($outTable).appendTo('#albums');
            });
        }