I Heard The Bells On Christmas Eve...

     Only they were red and blue lights, instead.

     As mentioned in the previous post, I went into work for a few hours late on Christmas Eve, to deal with the aftermath of an ugly equipment failure.  The initial problem had failed to default over to a backup, and finding someone in the building to look at the failed device, report status and push a button had taken longer than it should have.

     My boss was annoyed -- and even more annoyed that we now had no backup.  I volunteered that I had a replacement for the failed subassembly, bought as a spare the last time the other end of the thing had gone toes-up, and I could go put it in.  At that point, we would at least be no worse off than we had been before the excitement.

     So I did.  It took several hours (the replacement is not exactly a drop-in).  Heading home a half-hour before midnight on Christmas Eve, the streets are not entirely deserted, but you could roller-skate on most of them without too much danger.  A few cars going the other way, a few cars going my directed and, uh-oh, what was that ahead?  Flashing red and blue lights.

     College Avenue south of 38th Street is a interesting stretch, fixed-up and kept-nice old houses up against vacant lots, sagging rentals and old apartment buildings.  There were police lights in front of a four-story wood-siding apartment building, half a block deep and a quarter of a block wide.  As I got closer, the lights resolved into five IMPD cruisers, four with the lights running, all empty.

     No doors open on any of the cars or buildings.  No police officers looking around with flashlights.  No sound.

     Just a reminder that holiday shifts are worse in some jobs than in others.  And in some lives, too.