Late one night I was making tea when I accidentally knocked over a freshly poured cup on my leg. When I say the scalding hurt I mean I debated whether to drive to the emergency room. I wasn’t sure it was that serious, though. Then I thought, maybe an urgent care. But while paging through the phone book I started to get the impression there wasn’t one open that late. Maybe I could ride it out until the morning and then go to the urgent care office. I finally decided to just take some painkillers and lie down. By the morning the scalded skin still stung but I could cope. The worst part of the whole episode, though, was that awful feeling of loneliness. It was the middle of the night so I didn’t feel I could call anyone, and most of my family’s in Chicago so they couldn’t come over to help right away.

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Last year when President Obama came to Newport Beach’s Balboa Bay Club to raise money for his campaign, I knew the Daily Pilot should cover it. But it was on a Sunday and on one was too eager to come in on their day off. So as the Pilot’s city editor at the time I decided to cover it myself. I didn’t need much motivation. I was obsessed with the presidential election going back to the summer of 2007.

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Watching the sun set in Laguna Beach

Editor’s note: My unedited farewell column for the Daily Pilot.

About four years ago, Tony Dodero, my boss at the time, asked me if I would like to be Times Community News’ web editor.

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