Saturday: 1) we stopped into Barbarian Comics in downtown Wheaton. The store is a lot neater and well organized than I remember from my last visit three years ago. I chatted with the owner, Carl Bridgers (2), who says they are in their 38th year of operation and he's been there since the beginning and through three storefronts all along the same street. I remember Carl from when I visited the store back in high school. In the age of Amazon, Carl still doesn't have a web site, and manually pulls comic book subscriptions for customers who come in regularly to pick them up. 4) Cianna didn't sleep well during the daytime--this photo shows one of her few naps. Thus there were several screaming meltdowns from tiredness. 5) Amy's Potterotica came in the mail from Amazon 6) Amy didn't want to see War of the Worlds because of how the story twists poke at moms' deep-seated fears, so I hit the 7:50pm show. The camera point of view was almost completely confined to a 10-foot bubble around Cruise and the little girl which intensified the threat of the alien extermination force. I left the theater drained, in a good way. Today: 7) I visited the Penn Camera Store near on Rockville Pike near our house. The showroom is larger, but they don't rent professional gear like the downtown DC location near my office. 8) I bought a pair of basic Nikon binoculars to keep on our kitchen window sill to spy on birds as they come to the bird bath (9). Tonight, I'm once again compacting empty boxes into the recycle bin (10) from our move and new things bought. We've made good progress unpacking, with maybe 40% of the boxes done, but the remaining are the toughest because they are full of books. Our house is starting to feel like home.

- mike lee - wheaton, md