I wrote this a Christmas or two ago and thought it would be nice to share to any of us out there dutifully on call.
'Twas the night before Cristmas and all 'cross the web
I was browsing through Discord, installed from a deb
Not a user was working; the servers were quiet
I perused a new webapp, thinking to try it
When just like the spider, my senses did tingle
Somewhere I knew of the plight of Chris Kringle
I jumped out my chair, nearly fell 'ver my pooch
Waded through wires and gave boxes a scooch
I got out the door and eyes raised towards my roof
What I saw was a joke, certainly just a goof
For a fat jolly man sat so pondering prone
With a quizzical look he was locked to his phone
Not certain my role here not wanting to bother
But asserting my role in this house as the father
I shouted up top "Hey there Santa, what's cookin?
Do you need some help? There's concern how you're lookin?"
He called down to me "Oh shucks there dear boy
I hate this here phone, this ridiculous toy
The elves say to use it to guide my big flight
But I can't seem see it cuz the screen's not too bright.
It's always rerouting, about traffic it's warning,
At this rate I'll still have the toys by the morning!
My route's in the air not on parkways below,
And I'll not be deterred by rain sleet or snow."
"Well Santa," I said only wanting to help
"The reviews for sleigh flight are quite poor here on Yelp.
What you need it to switch your nav mode to airborne,
Not walking or driving, so don't be forlorn.
Just unlock the screen and hand it to me,
I'll get you fixed up and erase your worry."
He handed it to me and to my surprise
Not an android or iphone sat front of my eyes
But a candy cane brick whose innards were magic
I worried for now of an outcome most tragic
But just then I spied it way up at the top
The icon whose presence made mystery stop
"Santa look up here this tiny white car,
'Tis the icon that's stopping you from getting far.
You're mapping as if you're a car on the ground
Which is not too correct for you getting around.
We can change it to sleigh flight by tapping right here,
It'll also find stops where to rest your reindeer!
Let's crank up the brightness by moving this slider
To help your eyes rest and not stay open wider.
Lastly let's stream you some music to play,
Maybe TSO? How 'bout Michael Buble?"
A genuine smile platered St. Nicholas' face
His worries were gone, vanished not with a trace.
"On this night here my friend you feel proud of yourself
The magic you did is like that of an elf!
I'm awed how you fix all this digital stuff,
I used to think reindeer and stockings were tough,
But now I can see that the world is a changing
And the skills that I use need to do some exchanging.
Now that it's working I really must go
To deliver the presents 'fore roosters will crow.
Speaking of morning, why are you awake?
'Tis well after midnight unless I mistake?"
I had but a chuckle, "Oh Santa don't dread,
For I'm an IT guy and hate going to bed!
There's a little more lemmy and masto to browsey
I'll likely spend 3 to 4 hours this drowsy!"
He chuckled, "OK, if that's how it works
You enjoy all your trolling, browsing and lurks!"
He hopped on his ride, took a seat, grabbed a reign
And started to hum with Mariah's refrain.
As he took to the air he gave pause to his song,
"Merry christmas to you, may your uptimes be long!"
'Twas the night before start-up and all through the net, not a packet was moving; no bit nor octet. The engineers rattled their cards in despair, hoping a bad chip would blow with a flare. The salesmen were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of data nets danced in their heads. And I with my datascope tracings and dumps prepared for some pretty bad bruises and lumps. When out in the hall there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.
There stood at the threshold with PC in tow, An ARPANET hacker, all ready to go. I could see from the creases that covered his brow, he’d conquer the crisis confronting him now. More rapid than eagles, he checked each alarm and scrutinized each for its potential harm.
On LAPB, on OSI, X.25! TCP, SNA, V.35!
His eyes were afire with the strength of his gaze; no bug could hide long; not for hours or days. A wink of his eye and a twitch of his head, soon gave me to know I had little to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, fixing a net that had gone plumb berserk; And laying a finger on one suspect line, he entered a patch and the net came up fine!
The packets flowed neatly and protocols matched; the hosts interfaced and shift-registers latched. He tested the system from Gateway to PAD; not one bit was dropped; no checksum was bad. At last he was finished and wearily sighed and turned to explain why the system had died. I twisted my fingers and counted to ten; an off-by-one index had done it again…
Thanks for this. Was a pleasant read and a good mood lifter after recieving an emergency call for a useless alarm in the monitoring ^^
