I very much like Officer Raoul (yes, a little much PotO on my playlist?) and his parellax view of Ben's last seven years or so. Ben's father's a nut, and deserves Ben's mother. Seriously.
I also like writing minor characters as convincing geeks. The dad in "A Cup of Time" was a DBA; here, Bea's mom is g33x0r. I had to make her geek, actually, so that the "secure" packing that the moving company did was actually Very Bad.
For those of you who are reading this as I work on it, more pieces will go up -- later. I'm not 'here' enough to post bits.