Listening to the Emerging Morning

For the second morning in a row, I awoke late, though this morning I was up before 5:30.  Yesterday, it was after 6:00 before I got out of bed.  This is odd for me, in that I'm normally up before 4:45.

Despite the late start to the day, I went for a fairly long walk, logging 6.35 miles in just over one hour 35 minutes.  That's not racing, but it's more than a plodding stroll, though the heat this morning was more than I had hoped for.  The weather widget on my computer claimed it was 77 degrees, but I am certain it was at least 80, if not warmer.  I much prefer walks when the temperature is under 70.

Sunday morning walks are my favorites because there is very little traffic along the streets on which I walk, very little road noise from nearby thoroughfares, and I see only a few people out and about.  It's calming to walk alone in the predawn darkness and the early morning light.  Even though I'm not simply out for a stroll, I feel more at peace when the world around me is quiet and doesn't require so much of my attention to avoid becoming a hit-and-run statistic.

While there is very little traffic, most of the cars I see seem to be operating urgently.  They speed by as if their drivers are consumed with FOCUS on the destination...time's-a-wasting and I gotta get to my church service!  Of course I doubt any of the people who drive by me at that hour are heading to church. Some of them, the ones inching along in comparison to the others that zip by, are delivering newspapers.  I hear the loud music coming from those cars long before I see them, as they surge forward between delivery points, their music devices blaring the drivers' current early-morning favorite tunes.  One newspaper delivery driver who careens through nearby neighborhoods in an old blue Dodge van, though I didn't see her this morning, likes to listen to very loud ranchera music.  I like that music, though I prefer it after I've had breakfast and coffee so I can process the sounds in my brain just a bit better.

Lately, as I head out the door, I've heard the cheeps and peeps of birds I do not recall hearing before.  I do not see them, but I can tell they are very near by, especially as I walk past trees and bushes with dense foliage.  The birds' chatter gets noticeably louder and more insistent as I get closer to the plants where they are hiding. I wish I could tell from their songs what they were.  That gives me an idea!  It would be great to have a smart phone app, like Shazam for my iPhone, that would identify bird songs.  When I hold my iPhone up in the direction of speakers playing a piece of music, Shazam usually is able to pinpoint the name of the song, the artist, and the album on which it is found.  I wonder if there's any reason the same mechanisms used in Shazam could not be used to identify bird songs?  If you see that app in the near future, know that there goes another of my ideas I could not/did not implement and, therefore, the fortune that goes along with it has gone to someone else.

How does one turn off his "idea generator?"  It only makes me glum when I find, months after I have conceived of idea I think has market potential, someone has taken the idea and put it in motion.  Think. Plan. Act.