JoshuasTravels

The Ranger Challenge came and went; there’s nothing I can say about that I haven’t already said. It always sort of seems like – with the Challenge, I mean – I’m either bragging or complaining, so I’m not going to really go into it. We took a solid second out of 26 schools (and a lot of them are a big, big schools). It’s been over for a couple weeks now and I’m still waiting on getting a solid CD of the all pictures. As soon as I do, I’ll post ’em and shoot out a link. In the meantime, here are two new columns by your favorite rhetorician:

On my wonderful Oregon
http://www.trumanindex.com/media/paper607/news/2005/09/29/Opinions/Back-From.Abroad.Columnist.Reminisces.About.Oregon.Life-1002357.shtml

Definitely isn’t my best column, but it does make for interesting reading:
http://www.trumanindex.com/media/paper607/news/2005/10/20/Opinions/Americans.Will.Be.WellServed.When.They.Think.For.Themselves-1025804.shtml
& a letter-to-the-editor about that last column
http://www.trumanindex.com/media/paper607/news/2005/10/27/Letters/Columnists.Take.On.War.On.Terror.Was.Based.On.Misrepresentations-1034419.shtml

and, as an added bonus I’ve attached my first photographic work ever published. The Monitor is the campus alternative newspaper, and I submitted (I hope to make it a habit) a photo of mine, which they promptly -and surprisingly – ran. I plan on using the Monitor to express viewpoints that might be a little too extremist for the Index and my official, Army-bound career, hence my uber-clever and unhackable Monitor-pseudonym Fosh Jenton (visible in the bottom right corner). Speaking honestly, one of the strongest lessons I’ve learned in college is the extreme value of Plausible Deniablity.

yours,
Captian Colossal

I know that you know that I know how happy all you guys are that I only took 17 pictures this trip. Well, trip might be a bit of a mis-label. “Denver and back in 72 hours” is a bit more accurate. Being the adventurous sort I am, I swung up to Des Monies, then shot across Nebraska, mostly because I’ve never seen Des Monies, Iowa: A) any town my buddy Iowa (I think I’ve explained this before, but his real name is Greg. I just call him Iowa because I think it’s cool. It’s probably not.) is from has to be worth checking out and B) Jack Kerouac wrote in On The Road that “the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Monies,” which certainly doesn’t discourage me.

Alas, the only girls I saw in DMI were a bunch of teenie-bopper wanna-be groupies (which cannot be representative of the population). This is because I basically grabbed an A&W burger and some gas and pressed on. I was out of the city limits twenty minutes after I entered them. This depresses me but not too much: that Iowa guy (J/K!!!!!!! LOL!!!!) promised me that some long weekend we’d breeze on up there and see Des Monies as it was meant to be seen. Maybe even this weekend, if he’s not to offended by this writeup. DMI is one city I could spend more time in.

Like I said, I left Kirksville and drove north, towards Canada and Freedom. When I hit Des Monies I swerved left. About halfway through Nebraska the sun set and there was this fantastic thunder storm that was lightning up everywhere and making these huge explosion sounds. The simulated sound of heavy artillery, combined with the Red Bull knockoff (Red Thunder; the logo makes me think “Shazam!”) I was chugging, reminded me of the big Superman vs. Capt. Marvel brawl in Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come. If you know what I’m talking about, don’t admit it.

I took a short cat-nap just outside of Omaha, slapped myself awake and drove straight through to Denver, arriving around 4AM. I only mention this because it sets up this next sentence. Crossing the Colorado border at 3AM in rainy weather with Supertramp blaring on the stereo makes for a thoroughly bizarre experience.

After another short cat-nap in my grandfolks house it was ocho o’clock. And since my Pa picked up my sister (she’s a Frosh at a University in the same Utah-city I was born in) on his way to 38th state to join the Union, we kicked off our day with a big old brekky. It was a pretty busy day; we worked on my truck a bit, hit the farmer’s market, wandered up to the hippie-college-town that is Boulder and managed to squeeze in a few hours with menien Onkel and Tante, too. A quick side-note about that very same Uncle and Aunt. They own a sod farm. I was tyring to relate this to someone in Australia once and I said “grass” instead of “sod” and then spent the next ten minutes explaining that it has absolutely no connection to marijuana.

But before I knew it I was up bright and early for some more drivin’. I drive a Big Truck that just screams (A)’merican! I maybe would have liked something a bit smaller but it’s in great shape, so I’m not about to complain. It’s got two big tanks that can slurp up 32 gallons, total, giving me a range of about 500 miles. And boy howdy do use it. It’s hell on my kidneys, but I get all 500 in before I pull over. I’ve really embraced my truck, especially after doing Macho jobs with it all summer. And how macho is it to wake up, drive across 3/4 Colorado, all of Kansas and 95% of Missouri, crash for five hours, wake up and run a couple miles with the Ranger Challenge? Very macho, that’s how macho.

Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I stopped off outside Kansas City to see an old Trumaner. Kelsey’s super-cool; she’s from Plattsburg, MO (pop: 2,000) and proud of it. She transferred out of Truman last year, which is something I can respect without appreciating. Not to drone on and on, but she turned a dreary pit stop into two hours of more-or-less non-stop smiling. And it being post-Kansas just made it even more cool, because Kansas sucks. Kansas is full of corn and flat as a griddle-cake – the highest point in the state is a freeway overpass. Driving through Kansas is purgatory. I honestly considered motoring through it at night, just so I wouldn’t have to look at it. In conclusion, I hope our paths cross again sometime in the near future and hope she hopes the same hope (LOL!!!!!!!!). And that about ends it.

Fenton

http://fento.ath.cx/photos/2005/3_fall/denver/index.html

I was planning on doing a big summer wrap-up, but I don’t really think that’s going to happen. As much as I’d love to write-up the sort of big huge monologue that I’d like to think has become typical of JT.com, I’m going through some close personal loss right now and that somewhat dampers my affinity for writing. I’m not yet ready to share it with the world, but I am dealing with it, in my own pseudo-effective ways and I’m not about to waste your time publicly moping about it. It has, however, motivated me to keep busy and get this email out. Here are a few brief snippets of my summer and a whole lot of photo-links. I meant to get this out months ago.

The Fenton’s Go To Cali! http://fento.ath.cx/photos/2005/2_summer/family_road_trip/index.html

About a week after I got back from Where I Was Before, the four Fentons took off for a little quality time while touring the Greenest State in the Union – Crater Lake, the Redwoods, etc. A good time with some great photos to match.

River Excitement http://fento.ath.cx/photos/2005/2_summer/maryhill_jet_skiing_summer_2005/index.html

About two weeks after that, we took the Jet Skis out to the Columbia for still more fun.

Family Schtuff http://fento.ath.cx/photos/2005/3_fall/misc_family_pics/index.html

and

http://fento.ath.cx/photos/2005/3_fall/ken_&_jan_summer_2005/index.html

A few family pics, mostly from my Grandmother’s birthday, although there are a few from the big family reunion of nearly a year ago (I just recently managed to steal them off other people’s digi-cams)

The Hiawatha Trail http://fento.ath.cx/photos/2005/3_fall/the_hiawatha_trail/index.html

Early one morning, just before that same grandmother’s birthday, my Pa and I snuck off to that little corner where Canada, Idaho, and Montana all meet up. We biked the Hiawatha Trail, which is an old 14 mile long (with a lot of tunnels) train track that’s been filled in and is no longer a train track (although it still has a lot of tunnels). It was a lot of fun, and we ran into some neat stuff on the way there. In the beautiful city of Wallace, Idaho some clown put up a totally legit road sign proclaiming some street intersection The Center of The Universe. And, seeing as the only reason I’m such a photo-holic is because my father is, what did we do? (Hint: it’s got to do with pictures and taking them)

OregonChumsFun http://fento.ath.cx/photos/2005/3_fall/roosterrockfun/index.html

Late one afternoon, a few of my amigos meet up at Casa de Fenton for a BBQ, and then we went out to the Rooster Rock State Park, which is on the Mighty Columbia. We didn’t really do much, but managed to have a darn tootin’ good time anyway.

Roadtrip 2Truman http://fento.ath.cx/photos/2005/3_fall/2trumanroadtrip/index.html

All summer long I’ve been driving a big ol’ Red Truck around, working for a family friend – doing manual labor, hauling junk to the dump and performing generally manly tasks. Well, about two days before I was scheduled to drive cross-country to my college in Missouri (with my best friend E), the fuel system starting getting all screwy. Long story short, my parents graciously let me borrow the Fenton Family Ford Focus for a month or two. We’re planning on swapping cars back in Denver or Utah (each driving halfway) sometime soon. We laughed, we cried, hilarity ensued – check the photos.

Lastly, a little personal PowerPoint project of mine. On returning from the GDU, I had 300-odd photos I wanted to get professionally-printed out and make a big album out of. I did that, but I also made a quick slideshow of my Oz-periences. I made it mostly for posterity’s sake; I’d like to be an old man and hopefully this’ll help me get over myself one day. If nothing else, it’s gotta be fun to watch 6 minutes of my hair slowly growing out whilst appreciating the best in Josh Jams – a little Stevie Ray, a little Buffett, a little Clapton. Shoot, I love my taste in music. Once you open it up, click past the splash/title page and it’ll take care of itself after that.

http://fento.ath.cx/photos/2005/3_fall/OzPPTslim.ppt

And that, basically, was my summer. It was as busy as it ever is, but it’s over now. School has started, I like most of my classes, I’ve got a brand-new crew cut (all the other Cadets loved my hair, all the Officers were a bit put off), and I’m living the college life with two great housemates, Tim and David. And I’m re-establishing relationships with some totally great people – Iowa, Jason, the Dobson crew (we all lived in Dobson Hall frosh year), old neighbors from Ryle, the ROTC guys, and then some.

Ranger Challenge has started again (ROTC’s varsity sport – it includes lots of running with and without heavy backpacks and other strenuous forms of physical exertion), and it’s a bit more challenging than I remember it being. I’m paying for every glass of fun I had in Oz with every push-up I do in Missouri and a “coupla miles” seems a lot longer than I remember, but there getting shorter and, for the most part, I do more Passing than Getting Passed. It’s rough, but I’m sucking it up, toughing it out and doing the best I can.

I’m realizing that I tend to count my years as beginning with school, as I’m sure students everywhere are wont to do, and not with January. I’m eager to see exactly where this New Year will take me, but I find myself wondering about you, dear readers. If you’ve read this far, I’d enjoy just a little reply. Nothing much, just a quick update on Life As You; if you’re still doing the same thing you were whenever we had our last communiqué, the three most exciting things that have happened to you in that time, and/or whatever else you feel like. A sentence, a paragraph or seven pages, I’d love for you to drop me a line. If you’re not in the writing mood, fret not, fair readers. C’est la vie, eh comrades?

Fenton

PS- The last thing I want to do is spam your inbox: if you don’t want to bothered by my silly emails, let me know. In kind or harsh words, it doesn’t matter to me. Just let me know.