HuSistock

About a year ago my wife and I came up with a zany ploy to invite a bunch of quasi-strangers from the Internet over to our old schoolhouse, for a four day long party of eats, drinks and all the conversation you can jam into a meatspace minute.

The invitees were primarily composed of the denizens of Hulver's Site, a Scoop-based website whose main page is composed of users' diaries voted there by fellow electropublic diarists. The site is called HuSi for short. Since this event was designed to take place largely outdoors, we thought it only natural to call it HuSistock.

Well, HuSistock 2005 has just concluded. The last guest will leave tomorrow, once his car is fixed. The dust has settled. The party's over. Everyone here at the schoolhouse is dog tired, but suffused with a glow of satisfaction.

It seems that everybody had a fabulous time. I sure did.

It was pretty amazing to get to meet all those ghosts of personalities I have almost known through the web these past years. Now there is meat on their bones. They came from across the continent as a special and strange kind of acquaintances, and now I can close my eyes and see their faces and think of them as friends.

A webcam went out live, courtesy of 606 and MNS. Many still photos were taken, both chemical and digital, and our honoured guest MostlyHarmless has already posted some of his: Page 1, Page 2

Here is my own write-up of the event on Hulver's Site.

Update: Honoured guest nstenz has also posted photos now: HuSistock Gallery

To readers of Simon of Space, I must apologize for shafting you on an episode. I almost got it done before I had to start going crazy for HuSistock, but not quite. I'm going to see War of the Worlds tonight and then the first thing I'm doing tomorrow is finishing up the newest chunk for posting. Thank you for bearing with me.

To any fellow villagers here in Gilford who might have been disturbed by our music and our laughter: thank you for not calling the OPP.

People can be nifty.