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I was looking for an obituary that was due to be published Saturday or Sunday. I have checked the Daily Pilot three days running only to see the lemonade stand story and the same single obit — three days running. Nor can I find the columns I loved to read – Geoff West, to name one. As someone who lives outside Newport Beach, and the state of California, I have depended (for the past four years) on the Daily Pilot to keep me updated on all the political and local shenanigans.

In this space last week, I asked for opinions on a couple reader feature and on an ethical debate that was sweeping through newsrooms across the country. The reader features I wanted input on included our diary-style Guy Hebert column on the Mighty Ducks hockey team and a car crash reported as a poem by staff writer Deepa Bharath. The ethical question concerned a newspaper in the state of Washington that published a false story to catch a criminal.

Well here I am in my new Sunday spot. My goal, as always, is the same. To give readers a peek into the inner workings of the newsroom, and maybe explain why we make the decisions we do. What will change today is my focus, which I plan to keep much narrower and honed. So speaking of focus, let's talk a little here about photographs. To begin, I'd like to say that one of the things we are most proud of here at the Daily Pilot is our photography.

Orange Coast College's speech and debate team finished second at a competition held earlier this month. The two-time state champions finished behind defending national champ Mount San Antonio College at the Fall Championships Tournament, which was held Dec. 2-3 at Cal State Long Beach. Among OCC's standouts were Adam Navarro, who won a gold in reader's theater and a silver in duo interpretation; Melissa Jenkin and Dan Culbert, who won gold in reader's theater; Nick Saia, who captured a silver medal in prose and a bronze in duo interpretation; Heidi Mueller, who won a silver in programmed oral interpretation; and Angel Correa, who won a bronze in poetry.

Throughout the year we shoot a lot of portraits here at the Daily Pilot. As photographers, we strive to produce an image that will capture the eye of the reader, while providing a glimpse as to what the subject of the story is about. To accomplish this, we use props or the surroundings at the scene and, hopefully, the end result is an image that provides the reader an idea of what the person is about. This year?s portrait of the year is of Newport Harbor water polo standout Clinton Jorth.

A very wise person once told me that a good business letter is one that uses the word "you" twice as often as the word "I." I've tried to take this advice to heart, but it can be really difficult, especially when the letter is part of a job application. Still, just reaching for this ideal can help a writer keep something very important in mind: The reader is a living breathing human being. And it's human nature to be more interested in yourself than in someone else.

Sometimes, even when we have the best of intentions, we can wind up leaving readers with the wrong impression. For example, an anonymous reader took us to task last week for this paragraph regarding a story about two men who reportedly accosted a local attorney outside of his Newport Beach office. "Police are searching for the suspects who are both described as approximately 25 years old, 6 feet tall and about 200 pounds. One of the men was wearing a knit cap and the other had a shaved head."

I bought a used book recently -- volume one of "The Diary of Anais Nin." It cost $8.50, has a bent cover and some underlined parts. Inside the cover, there is writing. Notes, it looks like, from the previous owner, who I'm guessing was female because the handwriting is loopy and feminine, if you can gender-ize handwriting. o7 "Pebble collection,"f7 it sayso7 . "Sadness in handshaker. I whip the wind, circle roller, run over boulders." f7 I was intrigued.

"Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees." -- VICTOR HUGO In last week's column, I wrote about my challenges in dealing with changes in life. I'd learned that I needed to revise the address for my post office box (the new address is at the end of the column). I also wrote about other changes in my life, from as minor as removing a tree to major issues regarding the health of family and friends.

Here's a sentence from article I was editing recently: "What's more — aside from a specialized curriculum — private schools are notoriously known for their smaller classrooms. " It's the kind of sentence that might not command much attention from the reader. It gets the job done, sort of. So this sentence could slip by without much notice. But upon closer inspection, it's a train wreck. And by looking at all that's wrong with it, we find some excellent lessons in how anyone can improve his or her writing.

Daniyel Grancich holds a 7-inch digital screen projecting a pair of eyes. The eyes squint, bulge or tear up to correspond with the spoken words "Please," "I'm sorry" and "Thank you. " The words are spoken in nine different languages. The eyes are built into an application called "Look At Me" that runs on mobile phones and tablets. It's an "eye contact avatar" designed to familiarize kids on the autism spectrum with social cues built into those three polite phrases. When Grancich, an autism researcher, heard about an app-building contest centered on autism, she immediately wanted to build something to help normalize "socially loaded phrases" that autistic children often have trouble with, she said.

Re. " Mailbag: Grammar gripe (March 12): I have been meaning for some time to commend June Casagrande for her column, "A Word, Please. " While the subjects of grammar and punctuation can be deathly boring to some (like reader Terry Johnston, whose letter published in today's Daily Pilot characterized Casagrande's most recent column on the Oxford comma as "ridiculous"), I am constantly surprised at how Casagrande manages to come up with topics that are actually interesting and truly helpful.

Had the Daily Pilot chosen to print my Jan. 9 essay, " Commentary: It's time to arm school personnel," on "gun-free zones" in its entirety, as I had requested of them, instead of leaving more than two-thirds of it on the editing room floor, our community would have had a chance to fully consider a common-sense proposal being embraced by tens of thousands of others to end school shootings once and for all. I proposed that teachers and administrators who...

1.) Our Olympians : No one made us prouder this year than the capable athletes, coaches and announcers from Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and Irvine who represented Team USA in the 2012 Summer Olympics Games in London. They grew up, trained or live here. Costa Mesa even gave out street signs named after its stars. So instead of just one person at No. 1, we have a whole Irvine and Newport-Mesa team. * Women's beach volleyball Misty May-Treanor (Newport Harbor High) April Ross (Harbor)

When John Canalis, editor of Los Angeles Times Community News in Orange County, told me that a column about my life as a Muslim American would make a good read and help people dispel misconceptions about Muslims and Islam, I thought, "Me? No way. " When I was 9 years old and still living in Cairo, I decided I wanted to be a reporter. My decision was influenced by my mother, Shadia, who didn't finish high school but read the newspaper daily. It was also influenced by my Uncle Beautiful, who would watch nothing but news on television and sit in our living room every Friday with my mom and other uncles, talking about the issues of the day. That, along with my innate sense of curiosity, and the belief that journalism is an honorable cause of which the Prophet Muhammad would approve, convinced me that I should live my life informing people, holding politicians and powerful people accountable (some of them know exactly what I mean)

The Daily Pilot is evolving to ensure our readers can get their news in a variety of ways — be it print or online, through Facebook posts and tweets, or on their mobile devices. To that end, we have a couple bits of news ourselves. First, we're pleased to share that we've developed free iPhone, iPad and Android apps so you can more easily access the Pilot's coverage on your phones and tablets. We have spent the last several months building a clear, simple interface that will put breaking news, sports, entertainment, opinion and community happenings at your fingertips.

Yes on Measure V Measure V doesn't change current practices. It preserves nearly 60 years of Costa Mesa city laws and policies. State conflict-of-interest and political contribution laws would still apply. Current bidding practices would continue, ensuring that the city saves money through competitive bidding. Measure V removes the city from local politics. It requires Costa Mesa to stop collecting via its payroll system public union political dues. Public unions wanting to use their dues for political purposes will have to collect these amounts themselves, as they should.

The Daily Pilot is evolving to ensure our readers can get their news in a variety of ways - be it print or online, through Facebook posts and tweets, or on their mobile devices. To that end, we have a couple bits of news ourselves. First, we're pleased to share that we've developed free iPhone, iPad and Android apps so you can more easily access the Pilot's coverage on your phones and tablets. We have spent the last several months building a clear, simple interface that will put breaking news, sports, entertainment, opinion and community happenings at your fingertips.

The games are over. The Olympic flame has been extinguished. The athletes have headed home. However, the accolades have just begun. Observers around the globe have hailed London 2012 a smashing success. NBC awarded itself a gold medal for its coverage. Network execs are exchanging high-fives since more Americans apparently tuned in to watch some part of the competition than any other televised event in history, outdistancing even the season finale of "Two and a Half Men. " For most of us, however, NBC's performance can be fairly summarized in just two familiar words, "spoiler alert.

In the week since writing about my encounter with two F-bomb-dropping kids, I have received several emails applauding my decision to chastise the boys for their behavior. Apparently, I am not the only one in these parts who is fed up with rude children. What is not so apparent is the hesitation to call out the bad behavior when it occurs. What is particularly interesting, though, is that as outraged as some people may be, only one chose to express ire in public via the comments at the end of the column online.