Post Investigation

Well, my eyes were half-bloodshot yesterday afternoon and now, after many hours of investigation, they are completely red. I cannot believe that this is normal.

Anyway, as I said, there were many hours of investigating in this third and final stage of things. Equipment gets set up rather quickly but then there is the waiting. Waiting to see if anything happens. People get impatient, tired, bored.... I only got tired. And cold. The temperature must have fallen to -40 C. with the windchill.

I have several hours' worth of recordings to sift through: my job is not over, not by a longshot. There are video and audio data as well as maps, etc. to sort. Then, there is making sure that everyone gets copies of everything, that our files are the same. Everyone contributes to the report and this report gets a stamp of approval from the owners of the property. The report is subsequently published in written form. Everyone is happy. This is the way that things are supposed to go.

I know all of you will be waiting for some details, any details, to justify the time you've spent coming to my site. I can only urge you to be patient.

I also know that most people want the chairs-on-the-ceiling experience to happen. I understand this wish. I think that I would be out of a job if this kind of thing always happened. It doesn't. Sometimes, most times, you just hear the sounds of the plumbing or the whrrrrr-ing of machinery. On the one hand, you arrive hoping to contribute something to a body of knowledge; you leave realizing that the body of knowledge is smaller than the head of a pin. Nobody knows anything. On the other hand, you really love your job.