The Confessions of Ira Short

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...

Ahead of me, the freeway is dotted with cars, white and black and shades of gray. In the distance, a single red Mustang maneuvers its way through the monochrome blocks. A bank of clouds hangs ominously over the freeway ahead, black and white and shades of gray. San Gorgonio Pass Runs about 20 miles from the Highway 62 junction (where I get on Interstate 10), to the summit, roughly the junction with Highway 60 in Beaumont. Wikipedia informs me that it is one of the deepest passes in the contiguous 48 states, as it divides two peaks rising 9,000 feet above the valley floor on either side. From the desert floor to the summit of the pass is a rise of about 1800 feet; it's a long and gradual incline for 20 miles. This is one of the reasons the railroad came through this way in the middle 1800s. The steam locomotives still had to work pretty hard to go up it, so they put in a station to re-fill the water tender. Banning grew up around that. The freeway follows the railroad tracks. ...