The Obamas See Avatar in Hawaii

Bo in the Blue Room.

President Obama, the first family and friends finished watching a private viewing of the movie "Avatar" at Windward Mall and left at 12:32 p.m., emerging from a side door at Borders bookstore.

"A group of more than a half dozen children came out first, along with fathers Eric Whitaker and Marty Nesbitt; the kids piled into a van while a grown up man we did not recognize did a head count to make sure they were all there," according to a media pool report by Peter Baker of The New York Times.

Obama stepped into the sunlight wearing sunglasses, a dark blue short-sleeve shirt, brown slacks and a BlackBerry on his belt. He was accompanied by his two daughters.

"A light cheer went up from the crowd of onlookers in the parking lot and Potus waved at them," according to Baker's report. Read the whole thing here

Hello Mr. President Goodbye Freedom

Obama's trying to get used to being the big cheese with fewer freedoms. I know there are sadder tales out there and this is what Obama signed up for, but this is kind of sad.

WaPo: "This time I answered, 'Hello, Mr. President,' " Link said. "When he called, it used to just be 'Hey, Barack. What's going on?' But plain old Barack is gone."

Obama's home in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood has become a compound guarded ever more closely by bomb-sniffing dogs and Secret Service agents who peer through binoculars at neighboring rooftops. When he travels around the city, it is in an armored limousine and 20-car motorcade, so he has mainly stayed bunkered at home or a downtown transition office. Last week, Obama told one friend that he felt "a little boxed in."
This is only the beginning of the transformation that awaits the president-elect and his family. In two months, they will move into a sterile house in a unfamiliar city where they have never felt particularly comfortable. Friends say Obama is savoring these final weeks in Chicago and spending as much time as possible with his family before he takes the oath of office Jan. 20.