Forgot to write about a thing that happened as we drove into downtown before the movie last night. We came off of Aurora and headed up to Fifth, turning southbound at Battery before hitting a light on Bell. We were in the leftmost, northern lane.

As we sat at the intersection I noticed a bright red taillight refraction against Viv’s driver side door. Immediately I realized that as the entire block we were in was in shadow it had to be a laser rather than a reflection and I called it to Viv’s attention, pointing at it and reaching in front of her to tap it. As soon as I did so, the light winked off.

I started laughing and joking about it and as I did so realized that, as the beam was highly attenuated and elongated, it must have originated some distance away and probably from one of the taller buildings in the area. Given the angle and shape of the light spot, it probably was being shone down from in front of the car from a building to our south on the eastern side of the street.

The final point of actual concern to me was that given that the bean originated quite some distance away – the width of the attenuated beam was about a centimeter – and that it winked off immediately upon my reaching out to tap it, the beam was almost certainly attached to a spotter scope with someone sighting down it.

Last night, a block away from where this occurred, a multi-hour parade attracted tens of thousands of people to downtown. Let that sink in for a minute. Someone on a high building was playing with a laser-sighted spotting scope about two hours before a huge public event.

I called 911. I had to. The operator was attentive and courteous and clearly was taking my call seriously.