I figured it out. It was the evernote web clipper chrome plugin messing with keyboard input. I realized it might be a chrome issue when I tested in firefox and it worked fine. (someone else posted a similar issue here)...
@mcofko I'm running into the same issue, using some tutorial code, but simplified. (I'm also a newbie, but just wanted to chime in, in case you figured it out or to follow this post.)