There are just over three days left until the big day here in California, and we’re really excited to announce the fourth and final challenge.

We know sysadmins work magic. You know sysadmins work magic. Now it’s time to tell the rest of the world.

This week’s challenge: tell us the story of a time when you were the hero. A time when you saved an invaluable file. A network. A company. A life. Send your story to sysadminday at opendns dot com. Just like the previous three weeks, the best story wins a $50 gift card from American Express.

With this challenge we’re looking to be inspired — examples of accomplishing what is thought to be impossible. And we want the whole story, including the situation leading up to the heroic act and the response you got afterward.

For those of you who are uncomfortable patting yourself on the back, don’t worry about it. We’ll do it for you.

Good luck sysadmins!

Update: Submissions are due Friday at 9 a.m. PST.

Our celebration of SysAdmin Appreciation Day continues. Only one week left until the big day, Friday, July 27th. I hope you’ve been planning your gifts for that special admin in your life.

Today, I’m happy to share the winner of SysAdmin Challenge No. 3, which was to share the best SysAdmin joke with us. The winner of this week’s $50 gift card from American Express is Steven A.

Here’s the winning entry.

Q. Where does a sysadmin go after work?
A. 127.0.0.1

Brief, witty, with a tip of the hat to network addressing… how could we not enjoy it?

Come back Monday, July 23rd to learn about the final weekly challenge.

Last week you proved you’re creative and clever. This week we want to see your funny side.

Every profession has its standard-issue jokes. Among the more well-known are the one about the lawyer and the ambulance:

Q. What do you call a lawyer who doesn’t chase ambulances?
A. Retired

And the one about the slacker musician:

Q. What do you call a musician who breaks up with his girlfriend?
A. Homeless

We know great sysadmin jokes exist, so shoot us an email at sysadminday at opendns dot com and share the funniest ones you know. Like the previous challenges, the winner gets a $50 gift card from American Express. You have until this Friday at 9 a.m. PST to submit an entry.

I thought about summing up this post with a haiku of my own, but this week’s winner is too good to compete with. Huge congratulations to Kirk Friggstad, the winner of OpenDNS SysAdmin Challenge No. 2.

We asked all of you, Kirk included, to compose a haiku about what it means to be a sysadmin. The response was overwhelming and on behalf of the whole team, thanks to everyone who took the time to submit. You guys kept us laughing all week long.

Kirk submitted a series of haikus, each one seemingly funnier and more clever than the previous. Here’s the one we selected for the crown:

“Evening Reflection”
—————
Moon shines on water
Crickets chirp in the tall grass
Damn, it’s my pager

Stay tuned right here for details about the next in the series of four SysAdmin Challenges, to be announced on Monday. And for your reading pleasure, here are a few more of Kirk’s submissions, at least a couple being solid runner-ups.

“Server Room”
————–
Summer clouds float by
No, it’s smoke from the Dell rack
Watch out for halon

“With No Power Comes Great Responsibility”
—————
A quiet peace comes
Beeps and fans fall silent now
Power supply fails

“On the Help Desk”
—————
The one true answer:
“Try turning it off and on”
Words of great wisdom

“The Last Day”
—————
Where is that backup?
I swear it worked yesterday!
Work on resume.

There are 17 days left until SysAdmin Appreciation Day, which means it time to unveil challenge No. 2.

This week we ask you to go deep inside yourself and find your inner poet. Write a haiku on a topic that is intimately familiar to you: What it means to be a sysadmin. Compose the poem - the funnier the better - and send it to our judges at sysadminday at opendns dot com.

For those of you less poetically inclined, the only guideline we’ll give you is that haikus are generally three lines in length. That’s not to say yours needs to be, but it should give you a starting point.

Here are a few examples from Librenix:

“Email Dilemma”

Mail is killer app
spam overflows my quota
I need new mailbox

“The Script Kiddie”

My server was hacked
SSH had a hole
now my box is 0wned

The rules are the same as last week…

First place gets a $50 American Express gift card.
You have until Friday at 9 a.m. PST to submit an entry.

Good luck sysadmins, and remember: You have to send in your entry via email to the address listed above.