Okay, so I’m going to make a simple new web page over the next few days to remind myself how to do this web design stuff. I have a couple of web projects coming up, and I’ve all but forgotten how this whole html thing works.

I’m going to attempt to index the blahgs since there are enough now to make it difficult to skim through. I’m also going to do some fancy dealie for the index pictures. If there’s anything you’ve wanted from foam and have yet to see, now’s the time.

For now, here’s a link to pictures from Heidi and my recent trip to Alaska.

Hello Foamers.

Well, there’s no more vacation and no more business trips for a while. The past few days I’ve quietly settled back into life around the house. I watered the lawn, did me some dishes, laundered some laundry, had dinner with friends and family.

I was happy to come home. Why? Because home is where I belong. Well, sort of. Home is where I think I belong. And I convinced myself that I would be happy to be home, so there you are. I’m slap happy.

Not really.

Or am I?

My point is that I just can seem to figure out how I feel about coming home. I saw fantastic things on my trip and enjoyed some much needed time with my wife. I had oodles of fun! So why would I be happy to get home? I should be pissed that I have to go home, go back to work in the mines just when my blackened lungs were slowing their eternal flow of mucus. Nevertheless, I breathed a huge cabbage-scented sigh of relief when we walked into our track house here in Woodland. I dropped our luggage off, checked my email, played with the dogs and then curled up with the television.

Wait a second…

The god damned television.

I hadn’t watched any of the teevee for nearly three weeks. But I grabbed the remote and flipped that sumbitch on like I was a gunslinger un-holstering a fistful of business.

Was I happy to return home or to the television? That’s a scary thought. I wonder what Dr. Phil would say about it.

Aside from the dogs, there is little of importance to me in our house. I would be pleased just to travel the globe with Heidi indefinitely. I’ve heard myself say before that home is a base where you can regroup. What, am I waging war? Should I look at my underwear as my soldiers, desperately needing to be washed and folded into ranks before the next battle? Of course not; I must have meant an emotional regrouping. That’s it. However, I was emotionally more intact on vacation. At home I tend to stumble unconsciously into routines.

So what’s the deal? I refuse to believe that teevee is my regrouping. I’d say that I watch less teevee than the average person. With the exception of the fabulous distraction device known as my Xbox, I save my viewing for very few network shows. Mostly I prefer to distract with a book. No, it can’t be the teevee. But the teevee may just be a symptom of a darker force.

I… think… it… might… be…

FEAR!

The god damned fear.

Fear of having too much fun. Fear of learning too many things. Fear of change. Fear of change.

Coming home is like falling into a bed made with satiny sheets of pure denial. Clouds tumble in overhead, curtains get drawn, lights go out and food is only reheated. Fear walked me into my house and sat me on the couch, lifted the remote into my hands and said, “there, there, Dave, it will be okay. The world is a fiction best observed from a distance. Shall I get you a beer. Doesn’t that sound niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice?”

Yes, folks, you are at floatingfoam.com, chief purveyors of fine fear and other household furnishings.

Alaska! That’s where I was last week, fishing for halibut, searching for moose, abdicating my electronic addictions.

Heidi and I stayed with and were guided by Robbie and Leon, long time family friends of Clan Rasmussen and current Alaskan residents. In fact, they are residents in two parts of Alaska.

They reside on a hillside in Anchorage as well as on an acre or so of virtually untouched beach in a beautiful place called Sadie Cove. Both residences were hand-built by Robbie and Leon. The home in Anchorage, with its modern rejection of 90 degree angles and 18″ walls is a marvel of insulation. The cabin(s) in Sadie Cove (that’s right, there are two cabins) boast pressurized water and hydroelectric power, tapped from the dam that Leon and his neighbor Jim built in the sketchy mountainous terrain above. Moreover, every piece of wood and nail had to be carried by skiff over the sometimes tumultuous Kachemak Bay.

To see the things these people have built is to understand how we live, how we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us and how we can still accomplish amazing things if we just try.

Leon showed us the dam and how it collects water from a nearby river, how that water is transferred into power and how difficult it was for them to lay the piping needed to make it all work. Turning on the faucet in the cabin seemed more significant after seeing how it was delivered. It is apparent that I take my water source for granted here in Woodland, that I rely on the things our fore bearers created to live and that I am completely ignorant of how 90% of these things work.

To say I stand on the shoulders of others is incorrect. If I this statement were true, I would have to consciously balance my feet and constantly acknowledge my foundation. What’s most incredible about the accomplishments of Robbie and Leon is that they continue to learn new things. They reminded me that people are not simply born knowing, and that we all can do what they have done. The books are in the library. All we need to do is try.

From the cabins, we watched bald eagles fly high over head or swoop down on massive halibut carcasses from the the beach, laughed at the sea otters frantic pawing of the water and traced the movements of the pink salmon as they leapt out of the sea. We fished from the beach with lures and from a boat with heavily-weighted hooks. We caught 100+ pounds of halibut and cod in just a few hours from the boat, dipping our hooks as deep as 180 feet. The endless twilight of summer in Alaska compelled us to keep going until 1:00 AM or later, so we had plenty of time to enjoy the wilderness of the cove.

For those of you looking to compress a two week vacation into under 10 days, I highly recommend Alaska in the summer. Clearly, I am still high from the trip. I promise to get back to the usual bitter ranting soon.