The Confessions of Ira Short

Actions have consequences, often unplanned and unexpected, and sometimes unwanted. Frequently the results of our actions are a mixture of both desired ("good") outcomes, and undesired ("bad") ones. Good and bad are relative terms, depending on your point of view. ***** Life in the desert is directly affected by the availability of two things - water and food. While this is true anywhere on Earth, due to the scarcity of those two elements in the desert environment, they become the paramount factors for the survival of living things. Usually the two are found together; plants and animals are concentrated in areas where water is reliably available. For many years I have made both available to the birds and small mammals occupying the rural suburban area where I live. I tend the plants that provide shelter and food to them, and make available a steady source of water and supplemental food in measured amounts. It is an oasis not dissimilar to the natural ones nearb...

This fork of a Joshua Tree fell over some months ago; you can see how the stump is nearly horizontal. They store water in their trunks and can be incredibly heavy, and it just fell over from its own weight. The upper part was laying across my driveway, and the trunk was hanging on the fence, so I had to cut it off. The stump was still partially rooted, so I let it be. Now there are a half dozen shoots, incipient new branches, sprouting from the stump. As I was growing up I would sometimes be envious of those friends and classmates who already knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. I still know a few of them and they actually have had the jobs they wanted to do, or moved to the places they said they wanted to live, done the things ... you get the idea. During my lifetime more than one person has thought me aimless, or lacking direction for my lack of a clear vision for my future. To be honest, they weren't completely wrong; I'm making this up as I go. It took me a...

The large front window of the house faces east, with the result that every morning I am privy to one of a seemingly limitless number of sunrises. Most of the time, that is simply a matter of the sun popping up over the horizon, without fanfare, and so my day begins. Other times, when I pull the curtains back, there is something more waiting for me. The work I do (aka, my "day job") is writing computer software. It is all very logical, methodical, and relatively predictable. Even when I am troubleshooting a problem, there is really not any creativity involved. There is a set number of variables to be traced; it's a problem in logic. It's all very cut and dried. If I look at the sunrise from that perspective, it is not in the least bit remarkable. A meteorologist could tell me the exact list of conditions that have caused the clouds to form on this morning. I don't know the exact terminology, but I do know it has to do with the relative humidity, the air tempe...