Sometimes, things are like this. The guys from work scheduled lunch with former boss and an old co-worker on Thursday. Earlier this week, I’d scheduled dinner with some of the old co-workers from Group Infotech/Nth Degree/whatever they’re calling themselves now. So there was a lot of driving. A database box also barfed at 3am (right when it was raining all over most of Phoenix), but that was easy to fix.

First, we all piled into Chris’s car and drove from downtown to Tempe. Apparently, Jim sustained a pinched nerve while working on his air conditioner a couple of weeks ago, so his range of motion in one arm is limited. This also meant he couldn’t go to Ireland with his wife and kids. We all had lunch with him and Alex and talked about everything.

Then on the way back to work, Chris’s left rear tire had parts of the tread fall off. That was exciting. There were enough of us there that getting the dead tire off and putting the spare on was quick and painless. Of course, that meant Chris had to go get a new tire instead of working for the rest of the afternoon.

Then I met a bunch of the old Group Infotech people at Cork in south Chandler. There were 7 of us, and we got the same large dining room that we’d all had when we went for ThanksDinnerMas in December 2008. I had salmon with black barley risotto and a subtle Merlot. No one wanted the elk chop, and they didn’t have steak tartare on the menu. Ah well. It was kind of expensive, but good.

I also heard all about the internal politics at the old company. While they’re not bad enough to gag a maggot (as they were 1.5 years ago), they’re bad enough to gag a goat. I’m fortunate to be working for a place that needs the skills I have, that appreciates the skills I have, and that’s at least partially sane in how it treats employees.