Enter email address You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. When I first took over this newsletter two years ago, I had big intentions for my first day. I planned to write some lofty introduction, waxing lyrical on the grand themes of California and setting the tone for all that lay ahead. Instead, as is often the case in the news business, something terrible happened. Advertisement A man brought a semiautomatic rifle into a suburban San Diego synagogue and opened fire, killing one woman and wounding several others. I was sent down to Poway to cover the shooting and found myself in a situation I would be in many times over the next two years, transcribing an interview about the worst day of someone’s life while crying in a Starbucks parking lot.