Cool. I think what threw me a little was the term "Non-blocking". After some basic research it seems that means communications between client and server happen

Cool. I think what threw me a little was the term "Non-blocking". After some basic research it seems that means communications between client and server happen asynchronously? Apache and other blocking web servers must have a start and end for every file or stream and has to create a new instance (or fork the process?) to serve another client. Tornado does not require a connection with a client to complete in order to connect with a new client.