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David Simon, of The Wire and Homicide fame (and a former Sun reporter), won the big kahuna last week -- a MacArthur "Genius" award, which carried with it a $500,000 prize.

Okay, so maybe the Gigabit Genius Grant, which is based in Philadelphia, doesn't yet yet have the same punch as a MacArthur-frickin'-Foundation-genius award, but it's notable for Baltimore.

Here's why: A team of city geeks formed a grassroots effort called Bmore Fiber, to mobile the city's technology and entrepreneurial stakeholders to compete for the Google Fiber for Communities Project. Google wants to build a next-generation super-high-speed fiber-optic network in an American city or two, and there are many who want Baltimore to be one of them. (I've written a lot about this effort this year.)

In the meantime, the folks behind Bmore Fiber decided to use the hard work they pulled together for the Google Fiber effort to enter a competition in Philadelphia.

And, THEY WON.

Let me reiterate: a tech contest created in Philadelphia was won by a bunch of geeks from Baltimore. Before you're quick to gloat, major kudos to the tech community in Philly for thinking regionally/globally. (Another winner was an Israeli entrepreneur.)

Pretty darn cool, eh?