ev-il-fun-gus [ee-vuhl-fuhng-guh
s]
noun
1. A website located on the world wide web reached by executing
hypertext transfer protocol www.evilfungus.com in your internet
browser; owned and maintained by Nate Riensche and Kirsten
Hauge, used to share photos, videos and stories from their
outdoor pursuits, primarily in Washington and the Pacific
Northwest.
2. a compound noun formed by the words:
a. evil - harmful, injurious
b. fungus - any of a diverse
group of eukaryotic single-celled or multinucleate organisms
that live by decomposing and absorbing the organic material
in which they grow.
First known usage occurred in Railay, Thailand, in the
early 21st century. A group of American travelers were there
on a rock-climbing trip. Despite the protests of his companions,
one member, named Sean, insisted on eating salad and fresh
fruit -- foods that are washed in water that is sometimes
contaminated with micro-organisms that foreigners are not
usually immune to. Shortly thereafter, to no one's surprise,
Sean became ill, and was forced into bed for two days. Not
one to readily admit his mistakes, Sean inisted that his
illness had nothing to do with the food that he ingested,
but rather it was the mold growing on the baseboard of their
bungalow, or as he put it, "That evil fungus sprayed
its evil spores and made me sick."
It was around that time that I, in need of a creative outlet,
wanted to create a website to share my adventures with my
friends and family. I was looking through videotape from
Thailand and when I saw the scene with Sean blaming the
"evil fungus" for making him sick, I knew that
had to be the name. From that time it has been a regular
source of amusement for me to design the site and add content
on a regular basis. It wasn't long after the inception of
the site that I began dating Kirsten, who instantly became
a regular subject of and contributor to most of the content.
Then, in August of 2006, Kirsten and I tied the knot, and
because Washington is a common law sate, this website is
now about us and our adventures. Kidding, of course, but
really I did anticipate changing the denomination to equate
to that and to emulate our quaint nickname, Q8, but I just
couldn't quite come up with an adequate technique to make
a playful colloquy. So I stuck with the insipidly ironic
"evil fungus." I would have had to come up with all new
logos and transfer everything to a new site if I changed,
and that would mean a lot of work, so it's probably for
the best.
So now, a brief history of our climbing careers. I started
rock climbing in 1998, then took the Washington
Alpine Club's basic and intermediate climbing classes
in 2002 to learn mountaineering and glacier skills. That
was the year Kirsten and I met. Kirsten took the NOLS mountaineering
course in the Waddington Range in B.C. in 1998, the same
year I started climbing. She rock climbed and ice climbed
in the midwest for a couple years, but finally the pull
of the mountains grew too strong and she moved to Seattle
in 2000. She took the WAC's backcountry skiing class in
2002, and then helped instruct my climbing class that same
year, where she taught me how to tie knots. The following
winter, I started backcountry skiing with her and she taught
me to telemark. A few years later, we have both since sold
our souls to the devil and switched to randonee, but we
do spend most of the year skiing, whether it's riding lifts,
hunting powder in the backcountry, going on long overnight
tours, or ski mountaineering. We've found a peaceful equinamity
in the beauty, thrill, vigor, and comaraderie of skiing
that for the time being is irreplaceable.
That should be all the information you need, now go forth to
the site.
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