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The following was posted each and every year by my friend Mark. Each year he would alter it somewhat to reflect pilots that had come and gone. In keeping with tradition - I post it here. - Stuart a.k.a. Magnum_VF

‘Twas the Flight Before Christmas…

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,
Not a pilot was stirring, not even Mag’s mouse;

All the 18’s were stored in the hanger with care,
In hopes that FA II soon would be there;

The pilots were restless at home in their beds,
While visions of FA II danced in their heads;
And JinkX in Old Maine, and I in PA,
Had just settled down for a long family stay,

When out on the tarmac there arose such a clatter,
Mag sprang from his bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window he flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen Snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to his wondering eyes should appear,
But Archer, and Executor, and Firefoxx he feared,

With these little old Pilots, so lively and quick,
Mag knew in a moment it must be some trick.
More rapid than Raptors his courses they came,
And Foxx whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

“Now BIGNAP! now MERLOCKE! now OPPPS! and GIGANTOR!
On THE_SWORD! on Q-TIPS! on SLASH! and ROADRUNNER!
To the pit of Mag’s Eagle, do we have the balls!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, they mount to the sky,
So up to angels ten their waypoints they flew,
With a plane full of beer, and Kuchinator too.

And then, in a twinkling, Mag heard on the roof
The swilling and jawing of each little goof.
As Mag drew in his hand, and was turning around,
The wheels of his Eagle were leaving the ground.

It was loaded with pilots, and painted bright red,
But the question on his mind, “Which way would they head?”
A bundle of six-packs were tied to each wing,
and some fifths of Vodka, among other things.

His hands how they tremored! His eyes were aflame!
What could they be up to? What excuse could they claim?
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the skin on his face was as white as the snow;

The rumble of tailpipes he felt in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He pondered, if maybe, it might be ol’ Basalisk,
who plotted and planned this all out with the Silverfox.

Then in came Rokaku, a right jolly old elf,
And laughed when he saw Mag, in spite of himself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon Magnum knew he had nothing to dread;

Rok spoke not a word, but led Mag to his truck,
Then did some wheelies through the snow and the muck,
He turned on the radar installed in the dash,
And giving a nod, said “We’ll be there in a flash;

When they pulled up at BearForce’s, the welcome was hearty,
See the pilots together had thrown Mag a party.
And Mag heard Foxx exclaim, with a voice full of cheer,
“WE JUST BORROWED YOUR EAGLE, TO HAUL ALL THE BEER!”

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good flight!

****Gen. Firefoxx_VF AKA Mark

In loving memory of Firefoxx_VFMagnum_VF39074.4218055556

I swear it was just a day or two ago that I did my last week’s post. Oh well.

So for years now I’ve briefly toyed with various flavors of Linux. I’ve gone from trying Mandrake to Suse to Red Hat and back. And I have seemed to settle on Ubuntu - well for now anyway. Earlier I never quite had the time to really get into it. So a few months back Dell mentioned that they would start selling computers with the option of Ubuntu Linux as the Operating System. I briefly tested Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn (7.04) and I was impressed. So impressed I setup a server at work using the server version of Ubuntu 7.04 and ran Bind 9 on it as a DNS backup. Read the rest of this entry »

Two notable events happened this past week. Now while I do not miss 6 feet of snow a year (like NH has), we got about 8 inches last weekend. I really did enjoy it. Scenes like this one I do not get to see much anymore.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last month or so I was scrolling through my online banking and noticed 2 unauthorized charges. Just before then I had heard commercials for LifeLock, and while I considered it, I sort of brushed it off. Now after seeing the two unauthorized charges - and according to the bank they had my CCV number as well. I took the steps necessary - and then signed up with Lifelock. Hey, it took me a very long time to get the score I enjoy now - I am not about to lose it. Read the rest of this entry »

I have asked Michael to do a guest post for me on my blog here.  I am sure you will find Michael’s style of writing; depth of curiosity and demeanor to be one of a young man that can accomplish much in life - if he so chooses.  - Stuart

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The Wonderful (and not so Wonderful) world of the InternetThe Internet plays an incredibly big and important role in my life. I guess that the same can be said for most if not all people (under the age of 85), with the difference that my life would’ve been completely different (read worse) if it wasn’t for the Internet. Read the rest of this entry »