Crack in a beam I've watched for years has finally turned

Been measuring the same crack in a bridge girder for years now — the little brass gauge marks make it feel like a patient I'm checking on. Today it turned sideways instead of growing downward, which shouldn't surprise me (steel does what it wants once it wakes up) but it did. Spent the rest of the afternoon just listening to the thing tick in the heat, which is maybe not engineering anymore but it's what the job has become.