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Paperwork: My desire to be more like Sherlock Holmes faded when my world turned kind of orange · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

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  Speaker 1: Paperwork. My desire to be more like Sherlock Holmes faded
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  when my world turned kind of orange. Written by Lonnie Kane.
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  This article is being read by an automated voice brought
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  to you by everlet Sherlock Holmes. I am not. I
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  get personal reminders of this now and then. Besides being embarrassing,
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  they are deflating moments tough on my ego. Little things
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  happen that shatter a fantasy I have had since I
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  was a teen reading the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes
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  was amazing. His powers of observation seemed so simple and logical,
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  I told myself as I read story after story of
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  his exploits. I never gave up on the hope that
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  I could build my powers of observation. This became even
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  more important when I jumped into a journalism career. But
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  alas I am a simple human being doing what comes naturally.
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  Instead of tuning into the world around me, I wander
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  off off in many directions. I tune it all out
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  so I can see what I want to see. Then
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  reality slaps me upside the head. Such an awakening occurred
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  on Monday. We were enjoying our getaway spot along a
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  series of waterways linking some small lakes. It's perfect for kayaking,
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  which my wife enjoys. I stayed behind a peck on
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  a laptop while she paddled off to explore and enjoyed
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  nature and sunshine. Her orange kayak was easy to spot
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  from a distance. I was outside on the deck, but
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  also keeping a watchful eye on the water. I wanted
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  to be ready to help her beach the craft and
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  climb out when she returned. I was surprised, however, when
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  I saw the orange sliver nosing down the canal. It
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  had been less than an hour since she took off
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  from the edge of the dock. I shouted, you weren't
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  gone very long. There was no response as she swiveled
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  the kayak away from our landing zone. Aren't you coming
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  in now? I asked. Finally, she replied, I don't know, you,
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  said the strange woman as she paddled away. Oh sorry,
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  I said, mumbling something about my wife also in an
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  orange kayak. So yeah, Sherlock Holmes, I am not. I
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  looked at this woman but did not see her. All
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  I saw was an orange kayak, and there's the whole
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  woman in the vessel. Factor in the distance. I had
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  already checked her off as my wife because she was
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  wearing a hat. It looked nothing like my wife's hat,
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  but it was a hat, so the only clues my
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  deductive skills needed to see were an orange kayak on
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  the bottom and a hat on top. My clever logic
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  filled in the gap that being the woman in between,
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  I don't know you, yep, I felt that slap upside
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  my head right about then. I'm telling this embarrassing story
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  because it's funny, but also it blends well with a
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  relatable observation by James Clear, who I consider an expert
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  in time life management strategies that he details in his
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  book Atomic Habits. I am on an email list and
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  receive insightful quotes and ideas from Clear each week. He
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  recently noted the following from computer scientist Alan Kay, who
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  reminds us that our perceptions are limited. A frog's brain
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  is set up to recognize food as moving objects that
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  are oblong in shape. So if we take a frog's
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  normal food flies, paralyze them with a little chloroform and
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  put them in front of the frog, it will not
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  notice them or try to eat them. It will starve
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  in front of its food. But if we throw little
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  rectangular pieces of cardboard at the frog, it will eat
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  them until it is stuffed. The frog only sees a
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  little of the world we see, but it still thinks
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  it perceives the whole world. Now, of course, we are
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  not like frogs, or are we source the Center of
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  Why November eleventh, two thousand and four. Later in the
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  case says, you can't learn to see until you realize
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  you are blind. I will not give up on my
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  fantasy to build the intellect of a Sherlock Holmes. However,
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  maybe I have a bigger problem to overcome. First. I
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  might need to leap frog off this lily pad. I'm
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  on to get a better look at the world around me,
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  and to avoid eating cardboard. Kane, retired managing editor of
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  The Times in Ottawa, also was a reporter for the
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  Herald News in Joliet in the nineteen seventies. His paperwork
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  email is lonikanet gmail dot com or mail the News
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  Tribune four to twenty six second Street, Lasalil six one
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  three zero one