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Pandemic

Virtual Geeks

Do you still call it a happy hour if it's 6 hours long?

Throwback history

DC757/HRGeeks

My friend Ethan started a local DefCon chapter back in the early 2000s (2003-ish?), which eventually grew from being a small (5-7 people) gathering focused on security/hacking, to a much larger (50+) person general geek meetup. Somewhere along the way we switched the name to 'HRGeeks' (which in retrospect has caused so much confusion with human resources professionals), and I started 'hosting' - sending out reminders/invites, coordinating with the restaurant (nearly always Kelley's Irish Pub at Pembroke Mall, which is now gone), and nudging/pushing/personally texting/calling specific introvert/forgetful friends to come out for a bit. These meetups started around 6:30PM, and usually went until Kelley's closed at 2AM, and then continued on standing around in the parking lot until 3 or sometimes 4AM.
At one point, we had gotten so big that people were showing up to 'the geek meetup' that nobody new and weren't on any of the invite lists - friends of friends of friends had gotten word that 'fun geek meetup happens at Kelleys at 6:30 on the 1st Thursday of every month', and had just shown up in blind faith that it was still there (it was, for about 8 years!).