Mike called me up a couple of days ago to let me in on a surprise going-away party for our friend Big Jeff. I suspect that he’d forgotten about me, because I think he’d been planning it for a few weeks, but whatever. I called up some of our friends that he wouldn’t have known, and last night Jeff thought he was coming down to do a DJ job for Mike’s mom.

Nope, it was a surprise! He was pretty well surprised too, although he recognized cars once he turned the corner. But hey, a surprise a minute or two off is still a good thing. We had a good selection of his friends there: our old crowd (all four of us who started the group,) some people from work, softball teammates, most of his replacement DJs, and the more modern drinking crowd. I knew more people than I had thought I would, and it was a good time.

My original three amigos, JJ, Jeff, and Dennis

Jeff’s getting pretty nervous about going to Iraq; can’t blame him there. We expect him to come home in one piece around May. I was going to run the water business while he was gone, but it seems that I have a job interview with the County tomorrow. If I get that job, it will be a huge conflict of interest to be the water operator for a County system at the same time, so he’s going to have to get the replacement trained. If I can get them to hold off on hiring me until he gets back, that would be ideal. I don’t really expect that to happen though.

I’d planned to run up to the mountains today, and hardly drank at all. But I stayed later than I’d originally intended, and with an interview tomorrow, I figured that it might be smart to get more than three hours of sleep today. I can get the house cleaned and print up some extra resumes and all of that. Good thing I bought that suit ahead of time, and good thing it fits.

Things are changing all around.