Holiday Greetings to all you DBA's and SQL Server professionals! This blog goes out to all of you who are on-call this week, or in the office, keeping SQL Servers safe from the grinches.  Hope you enjoy!

Twas the week after Christmas, when all through the office;
Not a client complaining, not even the bosses.
They’re all away, without even a care;
As long as their bonuses were sure to be there.

The servers were humming, the disks all were spinning;
I’ll just put my feet up, and enjoy #sqlwinning.
I’ll just play with 2012 SQL, or maybe join TAP;
Or, while no-one is looking, I’ll just take a nap.

When all of the sudden the pager starts beeping;
And woke me out of my dream, while I was sleeping.
Alert said something about my t-log growing fatter;
So, I sprang from my cubicle to see what was the matter.

Away to the data center, I flew like a flash;
To make sure no databases, or servers would crash.
I opened the doors as fast as I could;
And went to the server, as somebody should.

I opened the cage, and began to log on;
And saw that the t-log was actually gone!
I looked around the room when who should appear?
A jolly drunken sysadmin, sitting in the rear.

I asked what had happened, but I already knew;
He smiled and said, I freed up some space for you.
Are you drinking again, here on the job?
No, he replied, hiccup, just a little egg nog.

"There was this large file, a bit of a space hog."
"So, you went and deleted the transaction log?"
"No need to thank me, want to see what did the trick?"
As I thought to myself, what a dumb  *@#ck!

More rapid than eagles, the SQL alerts all came;
And started to call the suspect database by name.
I tried to remember that blog from way0utWest;
For now was the time to put it to the test.

If I don’t fix this quick, there’s gonna be scandal;
And  then had an idea, to reach out to Paul Randal.
If anyone can, he’d know what to do,
Should’ve been set to SIMPLE, yes this is true.

The backup logs failed, and for this I will pay;
But hoped for a miracle on this post-Christmas day.
I called SQLSkills, oh, please be there for me;
But only a message played, try DBCC!

Back to my desk, to do some discovery;
I Googled the problem, and got a hit from “In Recovery”.
Without a moment to lose, as I gasped in despair;
I needed to run DBCC with repair.

Alter the database, set single user;
If this doesn’t work, just call me the loser.
Some sort of message, “Activation Failure” came abrupt;
But at least my database wasn’t corrupt.

Yet still my database has not come online;
And now it seemed I was running out of time!
As I drew in my head, and was turning around;
I saw at a distance someone coming with a bound

.
He was dressed all in khaki from his head to his foot;
I stared at the sysadmin, and thought we’re all in big soot!
Though he didn’t care, his eyes all were glazing;
But then we saw something all so amazing.

This dude’s beard and long flowing hair;
He looked kind of pissed, and started to swear!
His eyes -- how they twinkled! His dimples how merry
No, it wasn’t Santa, but it was Denny Cherry!

The stump of the toothpick he held tight in his teeth;
I knew we were saved, and sighed in relief.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work;
Then said, “Who dropped the t-log, what kind of jerk?”
A few clicks of the mouse, and all seemed just right;
But the drunken sysadmin was nowhere in sight.

All I could see was his half-empty bottle of wine;
But at least now the database was back online.
I was so grateful, and wanted to thank
He said here’s my bill and direct deposit to my bank!

“No matter, problem solved bro, thanks a plenty.”
"Just don’t call me bro, to you it’s Mr. Denny!"
And giving a nod, ran down the hallway I suppose;
Before the data center was sure to close.

He sprang to the curb, to his cab gave a whistle,
And away he flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
What the hell am I doing here in the middle-of the night!

Thank you so much for voting me as one of the Top Ten Bloggers this year! I also want to thank an unsuspecting Denny Cherry, Paul Randal and Steve Jones (way0utWest) for unwittingly appearing as characters in my Post-Christmas Poem Parady.  I slapped this together rather quickly, so forgive my literary license and destruction of the all-time classic poem The Night Before Christmas (click on to read the original).

Again, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to my readers, friends and colleagues.

You can follow me on Twitter @PearlKnows, join me on LinkedIN, or find me at http://www.pearlknows.com.