A New School Year and Bob Barker on Deer

Happy Tuesday evening, Rockville! 

It was on Monday—and back to editing for me.

After a week away (miss me?) I’m digging out from an avalanche of email. (Earthquakes and hurricanes aside, this one’s a doozey: 633 new messages between 1:45 p.m. on Aug. 20 and 9:49 a.m. on Aug. 29. Ouch.)

If your message is one of the many important emails in that pile, please trust that I have not purposefully neglected you. I’ve had to perform a lot of triage over the past two days. If you’re worried that your message might’ve gotten lost in the shuffle of this editor’s brief hiatus, feel free to resend it. If nothing else, it’ll be at the top of the pile.

And now, the “piling on” edition of “The Rundown”:

• Welcome back to school! Monday was the big first day for most county schools—and for all Rockville schools, which all had power. The county school system celebrated by inviting parents to post photos of their students on its website. We did some of the same in .
• A shout-out to friends and neighbors in Aspen Hill: Aspen Hill Neighborhood Watch will meet at 7 p.m. on Wednesday in the downstairs meeting room of the . The meeting’s topics include shredding documents and identity theft, presented by Gino Laspina, district sales manager for and Maria Mantrakas of .
• With September almost upon us, attention will soon turn toward the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Rockville events marking the 10th anniversary include a remembrance ceremony and an interfaith prayer service.
• Maryland Juice proved that “the juice is worth the squeeze” today—to borrow a saying that politicos used to drive me crazy with when I was a State House reporter. (Hey, Maryland Juice is a political blog and “The Rundown” has never been shy about puns.)
  Today’s “Juice” has news that Bob Barker of “The Price Is Right” fame is taking a spin in the showdown over what to do about Rockville’s deer population.
  In catching up on reading from my time away, this “Juice” post speculating about Rockville City Councilman John Britton’s political future also piqued my interest. We haven’t had a chance to ask Mr. Britton about the post, but it’s intriguing stuff indeed. (Thanks to Maryland Juice editor David Moon for the link to .)
• We link to all kinds of good stuff at Rockville Patch on Facebook. You can follow it all @RockvillePatch on Twitter.