Please hurry and read this article series about Berkshire and its leaders while its still online. In this Motley Fool article series, Mr. Buffet has been commenting various matters, but his comments on real estate are especially enlightening. Some ideas:

Real estate values can swing enormously.

Right now they are seeing their residential brokerage business in slowdown all over, most dramatically in the hottest markets.

If people are buying housing for use, market is not swinging much, but when people are buying real estate as an investment, then valuations tend to swing.

High-end residential real estate has bigger valuation bubble than low-end residential real estate.

2004 fewer than 9000 condos were for sale and there were around 2900 transactions per month. Now, there are 30000 condos for sale and less than 2000 transactions per month.

Has anyone ever heard of the theory of supply and demand? When Mr. Buffet is having this kind of thoughts market situation is getting really serious. Maybe it is time for Cinderella move and leaving the real estate dance floor with grace.

The Craft of Modular Post & Beam: Building Log & Timber Homes Affordably is the name of the book. Could the title be any longer? Thank you for Amazon UK for managing such a speedy delivery.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Illustrations are clear and simple, which is good for educational book like this. Just like me to check pictures first, I just love comics!

Everything gets covered starting from materials, so this is a good handbook for person needing the overall idea on how to build post & beam log home.

On the negative side, book lacks depth on some areas. Luckily topics, which are interesting for builder are included and dealt with in detail. I suppose this book is must read on log building courses that author holds.

Thank God it’s technical and not general picture resource book.

Good glossary and index, both are something that I especially appreciate, because this book is my first real step into English term in the area of log homes and log cabins.

I am certain that this book will make my favorite past time activity for coming weeks. I plan to write a complete review as soon as I feel comfortable with its content. As an example, there is a section in the book that tells you how to build a spiral log staircase into your log home. How cool is it that this book tells you how to use log to make everything imaginable… Ok, ok, get rid of that image of wooden fireplace, you are burning the house down.

It is from year 1972 and under the log siding beats a metallic heart of doublewide trailer. Owner of the trailer is a retired metal worker Gale Spicer. The whole process of converting the trailer into a mobile log home took about four weeks. Mr. Spicer screwed log sidings directly to the metal walls of the trailer. Unexpected benefits include better sound and heat insulation so the mobile log home trailer has better living quality. Mr. Spicer says, “I’ve had people come here taking pictures. Others are going to do it to their trailer. I think we’ve stirred up something.” Article was originally written by Sylvia Anderson and it is called - Rustic way to remake doublewide.

You might remember Luoman Log Homes, a Finnish log home company, which introduced a mobile log home called MobileHome. I suppose Mr. Spicer could have something important to contribute for this Finnish company, after all he does have hands on experience.

INTRODUCTION
This article leans heavily towards communication skills but I still post it here, because many of these life values help in realizing dreams, maybe you will get something out of it to make your log home dream come true.

LIGHT STUDY
Cut the dreaming and get with the program. Darren Rowse had a blogging community effort in which everybody could write about blogger habits. It was a long read as there were almost 100 submitted articles (check them all over here) , but finally here is a layman’s statistic view on those habits presented on all published articles. I left out those comments that really have nothing to do with log homes, also I had to use some creative classifying while putting habits into respective categories. Here is a quick picture of the results, followed by actual qualitative numbers.

PICTURE

NUMBERS
45 network
28 frequency
28 writing brand
25 original content
25 patience
21 writing schedule
18 writing goal
18 research
17 follow media
16 blog purpose
15 use tools
15 reinvent your blog
14 enjoy writing
14 be humble and ethic
07 always prepared to write
06 write uninterrupted
04 make money
04 prioritize

SHORT ANALYSIS
Interesting point to notice on such general study is that networking counts most and technology is relatively low on standings. One might just believe that it is not about what we know but whom we know. Also notice the low importance of money.

HOW DOES IT FIT WITH LOG HOMES?
If one makes the jump from blogging into logging, most of the reasoning remains the same. One has to know right people to get support and then it is about persistence and quality work.

PERSONAL FAVORITES
Personally I found some refreshing articles among those that were posted. Here are my TOP3. Please go and check them out, I bet you will be pleasantly surprised.

Daragan Magayon

All Kinds of Writing

Transposable Element

WOMEN ARE THE BEST
Based on my choices, is it so that women blog better? Right now Darren happens to run a poll that fits well into this topic. Looks like men overpower women in head tally, but that has never proved anything, has it?

INTRODUCTION
Darren Rowse wrote about habits of effective bloggers, I thought that I would chip in by writing about habits of effective loggers – those who want to make their log home dream a reality.

Many people dream for a different lifestyle, but only few of us can really make it. We tend to get entangled with our daily lives and just can’t think a way out of the routines.

Here are few things for you to look after to get rid of your present way of living and finding your path towards being a logger (every single log home lover wants to log their own trees, just admit it and life gets to be easier immediately). Try to find few of these habits from yourself, and preferably in following order. I guarantee you that you are off the couch for good and swinging away that axe, but only if you manage to stick up with these life habits.

PASSIONATE
You need to have heart in your life. That is what takes you the extra mile like an energizer bunny. If you waddle through daily life just thinking about that fridge and telly, then you better stick with what you know the best – THE remote. Don’t worry if your passion doesn’t show as hugs and kisses because there are plenty of ways to have strong feelings. This step is the hardest because the first step of any journey starts a small revolution. TAKE it!

DETERMINED
So you have your passion? Great! Now… decide that you HAVE to do it, no matter what. Where there is will, there is a way, they say. They say it right on the mark! Will is a result of passion and determination. Very seldom we actually have the genuine will to do something that is given from outside. You have to find both from within.

FOCUSED
Two most important aspects covered already, right? Too often we do have the will but everything else takes priority over our personal goal and when it finally becomes time for our dreams it is already too late and we have to go bed or coffin even (but at that point, what does it matter anymore…). Put your log dream on the expressway and focus on that first and go shopping later. This is the true secret of getting forward. You might be tempted to watch that big match and after that start logging. Remember, first things first.

Another key issue of being focused is to do correct things. Personally I always wonder the people who have a dream, but they try to accomplish it by doing something totally irrelevant, in order to make money and be able to afford their dream log home. I suggest dipping your toes into the dream as soon as possible. Go and buy some cheap land and make good use of the trees on the lot.

VISUALIZING
Before any action, go through it in your head. Think what you want to accomplish with your move and only after that get into business. Agreed, it is better to do anything than to do nothing, but when your anything becomes something particular THEN you are on to something. Choose the best trees and get on to it.

ACTIVE
This is the last stop on your way to reaching your dreams. IF you get other areas right, all you need to do is to repeat the whole process over and over again. The more often you cycle your routine the better are your accomplishments.

PATIENT
Remember to have patience, without it you will only get frustrated and give up. Believe that at the end of your journey you will get what you want.

Yesterday I got mail from Honka log homes company. They had printed several successful case studies from their various business categories and now were sending them around capital area.

I can draw some interesting points from their pamphlet. First of all, they have added Timber Heart on this ad. It is there along with their other independent divisions. You might remember this post that I wrote while back.

Another thing that catches my eye is the recreation and project services. They claim that their service package includes: lot search, design, building permissions, construction, after services and local knowledge. Nice punch of claims, sure sounds nice.

If you have been using a RSS reader and have been wondering why I keep on reposting old articles the reason is that I noticed that I hadn’t followed Flickr’s Terms of Service. I should have a link to every picture that I put on my site via their service. So I have been reposting those articles that have Flickr pictures on them.

Joining two separate cabins done by different techniques put this cabin together. It is fun to see how different roofs are. Basically they both keep water equally well. The availability of different materials set the building methods. Frame structure is the same and it makes it easier to join the cabins together as settling is more or less the same between halves. Notice again charred bottoms of corner poles.

Remember when I told about my visit to the medieval trade village? Sure you do, I’ve mentioned it once too often. This primitive log cabin is from there. Enthusiasts who like to revive medieval skills have constructed it.

Notice how the base of the cabin has been built on charred poles, which last longer on damp ground. On poles lies the basic lateral frame and on that they have used timber frame technique, which is more common these days.

Real beauty is the roof. You start with few trusses and roll birch bark over it in overlapping layers. Finally several split logs press down bark rolls and keep them at check. We still build log cabins using same basic methods, but just with modern processed materials.

Here is a link to a bigger version of that above picture.

This Sunday I ordered a book from Amazon UK. The book is called – The Craft of Modular Post & Beam: Building Log & Timber Homes Affordably by James Mitchell. Long title and many pages so it should make a good purchase Actually the reason why I bought the book is not the page count but terms.

You have noticed that I am no native speaker. Time and time again I struggle with English terms related to log homes and cabins. It feels quite amusing to be able to build a log home but not to be able to talk and write about them. Therefore I decided to get this title, as a reference on terminology and techniques. As soon as I get my hands on it and manage to read it through, I will post a review on these pages. Too bad mail will not arrive any faster, no matter how much I wait for it.