finally

I promised to stay on the positive side for the rest of the holiday season. As you can see, I haven't been inspired to say much on the positive side.

I could tell you about my new HD television and my new DVD player that will "play" digital photos on the TV screen. We had friends over the other night who put on a spectacular digital slide show with their photos from Greece, Egypt, North Africa, and other places you've got to see to really appreciate. I could tell you how I got my audio hooked up digitally to my surround-sound system. But that would sound like bragging.

No, the good news for today is that we (the city I work for) won a federal lawsuit involving billboards. Not the huge kind of billboard you see along the Interstate Highway, but little mini-billboards that have sprouted up around town like weeds, renting at $7.00 a day. Some of them have been around for years, which was one of their arguments against code enforcement.

This case has been pending in court for more than a year since the last activity in the case. For the past six months, the case has been in an "any-day-now" status and the waiting has just about driven me crazy. (It would have been a very short drive.) We get notices of activities in the case electronically and I've been looking at my email morning, noon and night, waiting for notice that the word has come down from the mountain.

The case is not terribly monumental in the overall history of American jurisprudence but it will help our city look better and the decision meant a lot to me. I am not a gracious loser to begin with, and this one attracted the attention of one of our High Officials. Losing the case could have been career-threatening.

It ain't over yet. The fat lady doesn't sing until the appeal period has expired (or, if appealed, until that's been decided). But I've seen the fat lady in the dressing room, warming up her vocal cords, and she's wearing our costume. She's a very pretty fat lady and I hope she doesn't go wandering off too far.