Our long national nightmare is over.

I got to work an hour early to set up the Board Room for the inauguration. As I fired up the projectors, the House of Representatives were going through their pro-forma rituals, including the reading of committee resignation letters of Representatives who'd been assigned to new committee positions. Then they got to the business of the day, and informed a very noisy House that only current Representatives would be allowed a space on the dias, and that spouses and children would not have a seat (groan), that they needed to have the pins that were being passed around (groan), and that they needed to line up in order of seniority (GROAN GRUMBLE GROUSE).

By the time 8:30 rolled around, there was standing room only, as eyes watched C-SPAN on two of the three screens (one projector blew early on) in the room. Except for the poem, which I Felt was rather empty and poorly delivered by its author, the entire ceremony was magical. The excitement in the air, both on-screen and in the board room, was so thick you could taste it.

About a third of the way through Obama's speech, before the "yes we can" turnaround, I imagined him getting through the end of the "we face turbulent times," which seemed to stretch on for quite a while, then saying "...is bad, and is not likely to get better. Thank you, Washington! You've been great! Good night!" It wasn't his best speech, but it was certainly in the top 5.

Welcome to the era of hope.