Jeremy and Barbara

I need to tell you that my friends Jeremy Cole and Barbara Ford created the banned book event with me -- and were responsible for its success and longevity. I was responsible for not including press enter information.

About Press Enter

I think that people make a lot of assumptions about what other people know. For example, IT people seem to think everyone knows that you have to "press enter" so they don't bother to tell you to do that. However, I've found that most of us -- mostly me -- need to be told to press enter -- and what to expect when we do. I'm guilty of making assumptions, too. Some years ago, I put together a banned book read-out for the ACLU of Colorado. The mayor of Denver, sports stars, actors, all kinds of folks read from their favorite banned book at well-publicized events at the Tattered Cover Book Store and a big time book festival. Our booth was decked out with I Read Banned Books buttons, colorful and clever posters and lists of banned books from the American Library Association and actual banned books. I was feeling pretty proud of myself -- and self-righteous -- until an attendee asked me why I wanted to ban books. I looked at our display. Nowhere was there any flat out statement that we were opposed to banning books. Now, granted, the woman's analytical skills may have been more than inadequate, to say the least, but I didn't make it any easier for her. There was no press enter. Although the experience helped me become more aware of the need to supply press enter information, I'm still not always completely successful. But other folks are really bad at it. I'm on a quest to track down and share press enter information to know if Medicare with or without medigap or Medicare Advantage is better for me and why, how to tweet, how to set up an online portfolio and which service to choose, the best do-it-yourself Web site tool, if Firefox is interfering with my e-mail or does it just seem that way, who really needs long-term insurance, and lots of other living-in-the-real-world topics. Meanwhile, we all need to be cautious that some people may take this opportunity to try to sell us stuff. Try to resist.