Growing up. I had a conflicted vision of my own intelligence. I placed into the higher levels of classes in school, but felt really intimidated by my siblings\u2019 academic accomplishments.<\/p>\n

I guess that\u2019s natural for the youngest in a big family. As I got older, I managed to feel comfortable with my smarts and realized I had a pretty good head on my shoulders.<\/p>\n

One thing, however, continually makes me question that belief. Sudoku.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t remember exactly how I learned about the Japanese number puzzles. All I know is that my wife loves them, and I feel like a complete idiot every time I try to solve one.<\/p>\n

For a while, I would sit down with a puzzle on occasion to see if things had changed. They never did. I would start to make some progress, then realize I had made more than one mistake and didn\u2019t feel like starting from scratch,<\/p>\n

Then we got a tablet as a family present for Christmas (or I bought one for myself and am willing to share), and my daughter downloaded a free Sudoku game. I thought I could resist the temptation to give it a try, but had no willpower.<\/p>\n

When I started playing my first game, something seemed different. I tried to place a few numbers in boxes where I thought they belonged. That\u2019s when I realized that she had set up the program to prevent you from your own stupidity. That was my kind of game.<\/p>\n

I solved an easy puzzle in less than 10 minutes. I could get used to this kind of action, I thought. Then I realized that I needed to face my own demons. I loaded the app, turned off the help function and settled in for a game.<\/p>\n

Thirty minutes later, I had cleared the screen twice so I could start from scratch and found myself no closer to a solution. So I took the tablet downstairs, complained about being stupid and went back to watching sports on television.<\/p>\n

I shouldn\u2019t have this problem. I have no problem with numbers. I like logical thinking. But something happens when you mix the two that jams my circuits. I get easily distracted and lose that logical train of thought.<\/p>\n

The worst part is that this happens on the easy-level puzzles. I could see if I managed to solve those, but had trouble working up the ladder. But I can\u2019t even get past the basics.<\/p>\n

That makes me jealous of my wife. She\u2019s very smart so I\u2019m not surprised she can solve even the difficult-level puzzles. I just hate that she can do something I can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

For some reason, I decided to wade back into the fray on New Year\u2019s Eve. As my daughter taunted me from the other room, I focused all my concentration on the numbers in front of me. I knew the nine had to go there and the three could not possibly fit in here. I slowly worked my way through the logic and emerged with a completed puzzle all on my own after only 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

So I can say I accomplished that in 2012. Part of me wants to try another one, but I kind of like knowing that my winning streak sits at one puzzle. Why mess with a good thing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing up. I had a conflicted vision of my own intelligence. I placed into the higher levels of classes in school, but felt really intimidated by my siblings\u2019 academic accomplishments. I guess that\u2019s natural for the youngest in a big…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","wpcat-3-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2024,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023\/revisions\/2024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}