Imagine that your mind is the front door of a refrigerator. Throughout the day, you stick all kinds of notes on it, using either sticky notes, or paper and magnets.

By the end of the day, and definitely by the end of the WEEK, let's face it, your mind is a mess. Some of those notes are very important. Some of them are trivial. But even very important things don't need to be attended to today.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. In a culture so dominated by television that the racy image commands more attention than anything so subtle as an idea, OF COURSE politicians focus on "sex on the Internet."

Here's something that always surprises people. Your local library was one of the first entities to recognize the potential of the World Wide Web. Long before "broadband" found its way into common parlance, libraries were laying the infrastructure for digital communication in Colorado.

Recently I got a very thoughtful note from a Highlands Ranch patron. She had requested that the library purchase a book called "Forgotten Fire," by Adam Bagdasarian. We bought it. After she read it, she wrote that she believed that although the book was very valuable and important, some of what was covered in the book might not be appropriate for the audience we marked it for: Young Adult.

On a fairly regular basis - at least once per quarter - I try to step back from my life and sort through a troublesome piece of it. One piece is always troublesome.

Here's the current problem: more and more of my time is spent in front of computers. One of those computers is the one on my work desk. Another is at home. Yet another is my now somewhat primitive Palm Pilot.