“Only in TacomaAh, the irony of it all…Only in Tacoma could you host the committee meeting to decide the winners of the E-business Day awards for outstanding high-tech businesses of the area – in a darkened conference room inside of a major office building with no electrical power.It seems the Rust Building in downtown Tacoma had lost power Monday and part of Tuesday. This leaving tenants such as the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce and a handful of dot.coms, along with a sizable number of other firms and organizations with no way to run computers or phones – or for that matter – lights.One has to wonder whether the Seattle P-I photographer in town Monday to shoot high-tech firms for their story on the Tacoma tech scene picked up on the irony. Last I saw him, he was being directed to the Rust Building for a photo at ShopperBox Networks…..The photo for the story wound up being shot outside. In the light.E-business E-wardsThe cheering part of Tuesday’s awards selection process in the dark was the fact that it was difficult – exceedingly difficult, in fact – to narrow down contenders to only 10. Not so long ago, it may have been hard to come up with a total of 10 high-tech firms in the greater Tacoma area. Now, there are, as Carl Sagan once said, billions and billions. Let’s just put it this way – there are more winners than there will be awards handed out during next week’s ceremony.Speaking of Winners…..As I frantically sent out e-mails begging for money to help raise my bail during the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Tacoma Executive Lock Down, Brandon Fix, CEO of DonationDepot.com, stepped forward and offered to create a bail donation page for me at the firm’s e-philanthropy site.Within hours, an excellent secure donation page was up and running – complete with information on muscular dystrophy, the MDA and a photo of me – behind bars.Thanks to the DonationDepot.com gang for the work it took to get that up and running so quickly. “