were resources he could tap for help and advice. Beyond the small floating cabins he'd seen, like the ones on Powell Lake in British Columbia, and the floating house everyone had seen in Sleepless in Seattle , these days there was literally a whole world of floating houses out there, both single- and multiple-story, and many that were bigger and fancier than most folks knew. There were hundreds of them in Seattle now, hundreds more in San Francisco and on the Mississippi River in Minnesota, thousands in Portland, Oregon, a luxury floating home community that formed a suburb of Amsterdam, near-shore communities where the docks served as roads and the floating houses had driveways with cars parked in them elsewhere in Europe, a floating city that was being planned in the Maldives... The houses could be prefabricated or stick-built, and they floated courtesy of log floats, solid styrofoam encased in rubber, foam-filled pontoons, positive concrete, concrete pontoons, concrete and foam, wood and foam, polyethylene shells with solid core polystyrene block molded inside (like the ones he'd bought), fiberglass and envirofloat, whatever that was...
Not for the first time, he hoped he'd made the right decision with the option he'd chosen. The foam blocks weren't as expensive as many of the other options, and he'd thought they were the most expedient and easiest way for him to go, i.e., the most DIY-friendly, given his locale and situation, and most importantly he'd thought they would work; and the engineer at the company (who had assured Ketch he was ethical and had encouraged Ketch to get a second opinion if he didn't believe him, which Ketch had not done) had agreed. But he still wondered if he should have gone with pontoons, so he clicked on another of his bookmarks, a company that sold individual pontoons as well as pontoon boats, and reviewed the data he found there on buoyancy, sizes, and cost. He discovered that he'd need too many of them, they wouldn't provide as much buoyancy, and they'd be more expensive and harder to install - just as he had the last time he'd checked.
Okay, enough already, time to shut down. One more thought occurred to him - would he have to make an effort to contact the media to cover the event? Probably not - he imagined they'd be coming to him, once they found out what he was up to. Either way, he'd make sure he got some attention somehow if he had to. Though he really did love the house, his main goal after all was not to save it, but rather to make a point. If all went well, floating his house and squatting in the sound would constitute a statement and hopefully a high-profile protest or demonstration against eminent domain abuse in North Carolina, resulting in publicity that Ingram and others like him would hopefully find unwelcome.
With a feeling of contumacious self-satisfaction, Ketch was starting to close windows when he heard the padding of more feet on the floor. "Hey y'all," a soft voice floated across the room to him, and an apparition with a white shirt, a familiar face, and bed hair started to materialize in the dark behind the glow of the screen. "Couldn't sleep? I'm kinda restless myself." She parked herself on an arm of the recliner and squinted down at the laptop. "What are y'all lookin' at there, porn?" she innocently asked.
" No! Pontoon boats," Ketch dissembled, acutely aware of her proximity. He scootched away from her a bit to give her a little more space.
"Pontoon boats?" She laughed. "Are you serious? I never would've guessed that in a million years! I swear, you've got to be the only man I've ever known that'd be sittin' in the dark alone half-naked in the middle of the night lookin' at pontoon boats online! I swear..." She giggled some more, then calmed down. "What do you need one of them for?" she asked.
"I don't," Ketch said, and closed the lid of the laptop and yawned. "What time is it?"
"I don't know," she answered. "And we probably don't want to know. Hey, you want
Not for the first time, he hoped he'd made the right decision with the option he'd chosen. The foam blocks weren't as expensive as many of the other options, and he'd thought they were the most expedient and easiest way for him to go, i.e., the most DIY-friendly, given his locale and situation, and most importantly he'd thought they would work; and the engineer at the company (who had assured Ketch he was ethical and had encouraged Ketch to get a second opinion if he didn't believe him, which Ketch had not done) had agreed. But he still wondered if he should have gone with pontoons, so he clicked on another of his bookmarks, a company that sold individual pontoons as well as pontoon boats, and reviewed the data he found there on buoyancy, sizes, and cost. He discovered that he'd need too many of them, they wouldn't provide as much buoyancy, and they'd be more expensive and harder to install - just as he had the last time he'd checked.
Okay, enough already, time to shut down. One more thought occurred to him - would he have to make an effort to contact the media to cover the event? Probably not - he imagined they'd be coming to him, once they found out what he was up to. Either way, he'd make sure he got some attention somehow if he had to. Though he really did love the house, his main goal after all was not to save it, but rather to make a point. If all went well, floating his house and squatting in the sound would constitute a statement and hopefully a high-profile protest or demonstration against eminent domain abuse in North Carolina, resulting in publicity that Ingram and others like him would hopefully find unwelcome.
With a feeling of contumacious self-satisfaction, Ketch was starting to close windows when he heard the padding of more feet on the floor. "Hey y'all," a soft voice floated across the room to him, and an apparition with a white shirt, a familiar face, and bed hair started to materialize in the dark behind the glow of the screen. "Couldn't sleep? I'm kinda restless myself." She parked herself on an arm of the recliner and squinted down at the laptop. "What are y'all lookin' at there, porn?" she innocently asked.
" No! Pontoon boats," Ketch dissembled, acutely aware of her proximity. He scootched away from her a bit to give her a little more space.
"Pontoon boats?" She laughed. "Are you serious? I never would've guessed that in a million years! I swear, you've got to be the only man I've ever known that'd be sittin' in the dark alone half-naked in the middle of the night lookin' at pontoon boats online! I swear..." She giggled some more, then calmed down. "What do you need one of them for?" she asked.
"I don't," Ketch said, and closed the lid of the laptop and yawned. "What time is it?"
"I don't know," she answered. "And we probably don't want to know. Hey, you want
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