Extremely important e-mails

People sometimes send e-mails that have words in several sizes, colors and styles, even though doing that doesn't draw attention to anything.

I got a short e-mail last week, for instance, that had words colored six different ways and included both underlined and bolded sentences.

I guess I can figure out what's most important by looking at the words that are bolded, italicized, underlined and colored red. What I don't like, though, is the sender who thinks he or she has several extremely important things to say and those things need to be written in several different ways.

"I'm going to color this word green and underline it to let people know I'm serious," a person who sends terrible e-mails might say.

I don't know, but the way I don't like those kind of e-mails might be the same way nerds don't like people typing in all capital letters.

"It's like shouting," these nerds say.

No, it's not. It is, however, silly because a writer can only stress a point for so long before the reader stops caring or doesn't know what's important anymore. What would I do with an e-mail like this, for instance?

"PLEASE GO TO THE STORE AT EXACTLY 4:15 P.M. OR AROUND THEN AND PICK UP LOW-FAT MILK BECAUSE, AS YOU REMEMBER, A CERTAIN PERSON DOESN'T LIKE THAT ONE THING YOU AND I TALKED ABOUT. REMEMBER? IT WAS LAST WEEK AT OUR FRIEND'S HOUSE. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BE BACK BEFORE DINNER BECAUSE IT IS IMPORTANT TO ME. ALSO, PLEASE GET SOME EGGS."

Capitalizing, bolding or coloring any large section of words is almost as useless as pages read by people who use highlighters.

Though most people who use highlighters admit they highlight generally because they enjoy it; they also argue that doing this helps them.

I have never, however, seen a book read by someone who highlights that doesn't have at least one page with more than half the words on it highlighted.

"It's an important page," the highlighter says.

That's fine, but where does it end? Most people who highlight start to use three different colors and lie about having a legend that tells them what each color means.

Anyway, maybe it would save them time if they took a marker and wrote this on the front of their books: EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.

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The 2007 John Sanderson Memorial Award was recently presented by the Sierra Nevada Association of Realtors to David Cloutier, a longtime Douglas County resident.

The award was created to honor the memory of John Sanderson, a beloved past president of the association, and is presented to the person who has a genuine enthusiasm for life and is also active in politics and the organization's activities.

Cloutier, who has more than 25 years' experience as a professional Realtor, most recently served as the political affairs chairman for the Sierra Nevada Association of Realtors.

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The Sierra Nevada Association of Realtors recently presented Mary Dinsmore, of Stewart Title in Carson City, with its 2007 Affiliate of Year Award.

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Lake Tahoe-based Chase International reports higher median and average home prices in 2007. Though sales are under what they were last year, the overall dollar volume of homes sold is down 5 percent, with number of units sold down 14 percent.

The median home price is the threshold which divides the real estate market in half, meaning half the buyers bought homes costing more than the median price and half bought homes for less than the median price. The average sales price is figured by totaling the sum of the sales prices by the number of homes sold in 2007.

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The Thybar company (pictured), out of North Canton, Ohio, has begun manufacturing custom sheet metal products in its new 35,000-square-foot facility in the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center. This is the fifth manufacturing facility for the company, which has been making custom sheet metal products for more than 40 years. When it is completed, the 104,000-acre industrial center, eight miles east of Sparks on I-80, will be the largest industrial complex in the world.

• Contact reporter Dave Frank at dfrank@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.