It’s always heartwarming when someone I’ve never met contacts me from miles away because they’ve been reading what I write. Just recently someone with whom I share a great passion, asked me to write about what he does. The passion …

The 350 miles, which separates San Francisco and the Bay Area from Los Angeles and the beaches of southern California, stretches like a flattened snake skin, slithering its way silently down the valley. The accompanying ribbon of traffic twists and …