Assistant photo editor Rick Quinn has this wonderful ability to grimace at us when we hand over a photo assignment asking for a picture of something that isn't there. We do this a lot to our photographers. We're asking for photos to go with stories we're writing about things that are coming up in the future; or things that have already happened.

We're doing it again Sunday, with a fascinating story by reporter Tom Kisken. He took on the assignment of what would happen in Ventura County if Congress succeeded in removing all illegal immigrants.

Tom tries to weed through the hyperbole and rhetoric to give as accurate picture as we can paint about the impacts of illegal immigration on the county, both negative and positive. It really is an interesting read.

And our crack photo staff did a good job of giving us an image of something that doesn't exist.

I'll be on Page One on Sunday.

The Wisconsin State Journal in Madison is conducting an interesting experiment to link its online readers with its print product.

The Journal is giving its readers the chance to vote on which stories they want to see on Page One in tomorrow's edition. The editors make a selection of a few (apparently five to seven) and readers get to pick the stories that should be on the front of the section.

Ellen Foley, the editor, talks about it in a Q&A here.

If you go to the Journal website you'll see the box on the right side for Readers Choice with an explanation. Interesting, though, that when I checked it out this morning, there was no live link to vote. I don't know if they hadn't posted the list, or disabled the program. I'll keep checking it out.

We had an interesting newsroom discussion yesterday about the story we ran on Page One today about rising gasoline prices.

The story, if you haven't seen it, was that gas prices are going back up and will keep climbing probably until Memorial Day ... maybe hitting $3 a gallon for regular unleaded.

It was acknowledged that the issue was something that most everyone was aware of and talking about. But does that make newsworthy enough to put it on Page One?

Coming Sunday in The Star is the kickoff of an exciting, year-long project we are doing on farming in Ventura County.

Star senior writer John Krist is going to write about 1-2 stories a month over the rest of this year about the state of farming in our county. We'll talk about the weather. We'll talk about the crops. We'll talk about jobs ... and immigration. We'll talk about markets, old and new. We'll talk about impacts of technology. And we'll talk a lot about the creep of urbanism on the farms in the county.

He's going to do it through the eyes of four farm operations.

Our Sports Department is just now reeling back in the sports writers who have been on the road covering events ... and have sent another one out this week.

David Lassen, our sports columnist, was in Italy in February to cover the Olympics. It's part of a partnership we have with the Scripps Howard News Service where a number of Scripps-owned papers (like the Star) offer writers who get together as a team and cover the Olympics. They also write for their own paper. So we get our guy at the Olympics and all Scripps papers (and subscribers to the news service) get full Olympics coverage.

Newspapers ... particularly community newspapers like we pride ourselves in being here at The Star ... have the annual conundrum of how to cover something that happens every year.

This week our dilemma is the annual Science Fair taking place at the county fairgrounds. We plan to write about it. We do every year. We look to bring something "fresh" to the coverage every year. Part of that (admitedly) is our own sense that we don't want to write the "same story" we wrote last year even though we're probably the only ones who remember that story. And we accept that quite often events like this have entirely new casts of characters each year, which is always fodder for new story angles.

But sometimes it just seems like the same story. Our challenge is to find whatever will make you want to read it ... even if you don't have a direct tie to the event.

UCLA is playing tonight in the men's college basketball championship game in Indianapolis.

If you're a UCLA alum or fan, it's a huge story.

If you're a college basketball afficianado, the Final Four championship is always the biggest night of the year.

If you follow Sports, it's one of the half-dozen or so "big moments" that come up every year like the Super Bowl, Kentucky Derby, Indy 500, World Series, etc.

And the rest of us will find this an interesting story. But how interesting? And how should we play it in tomorrow's Ventura County Star?

Ah, to be back in the sports department.

Many of us got our start in the newspaper business in the sports department, covering local games. It's still a section that has the most passionate, devoted following of readers.

And this is the biggest weekend of the year for your newspaper sports pages. It's the one that gives sports editors gray hair, if they have any left.

Our page one for tomorrow's Star is, as they say, "in play."

That could mean we're not sure we know what we're doing. Or it could mean that we have lots of choices.

We prefer the later description.

Immigration remains a subject that we'll be writing about on Page One for tomorrow. Star Sacramento bureau chief Timm Herdt will explore what the issue could mean for our fall gubernatorial election. We're also watching the debate in the Senate to see what happens today, and we'll have something on President Bush's trip to Cancun to meet with Canadian and Mexican officials ... where migration is sure to be a topic.

We don't want anybody to think there's nothing to do here in Ventura County.

In tomorrow's Arts & Living section and in the Time Out section, we're full of places to go and things to do.

In Arts & Living, staff writer Brett Johnson tells the moving story of Christopher Fielder, who plays the lead in the Ventura College production of "Cabaret." Fielder is channeling a personal tragedy into his performance, which opens Friday. You'll want to read Brett's story.