this wierdness has been known for ages.  some reason  VCAP::Component.varz sometimes isn't initialized.  No idea why.  Pieter might not because he touched Varz most recently.

as for rescue: if this thing is not initialized, exceptions get thrown.  so 'rescue' is the simplest way to recover.  if someone wants to rewrite Varz to be expose a sane API then sounds like a grand idea. but it's outside the scope of this change.