With each interview I conducted and report I filed, I sought to understand how these great rolling machines had destroyed the person I used to be and killed the person I cared about most. But publishing stories about high-speed rail never helped. Like other pain relievers, print journalism became one more way to avoid facing what happened that day.

To combat homelessness in Placer County, a new nonprofit organization is working to build a campus-model homeless shelter, also known as a one-stop-shop, to make services more accessible by consolidating them into one place with the ultimate goal of reducing chronic homelessness.

Valarie Phillips sorts through clothing to be dry cleaned at Woodard-Ficetti Cleaners on J Street in Sacramento. She checks each garment, cleans the material under the arms and then handles any special spot-cleaning and scrubbing as dictated by a ticket attached to the clothing. Phillips, a Louisiana native, has worked at the cleaners for 22 years.

Wine tasting at the Old Sugar Mill in Clarksburg is often thought of as a good time, but walking into Clarksburg Wine Company when Jeremy Maron is behind the bar is something every Sacramentan should experience.