So.

Imagine. Right now.
Buying a house in the middle of a fucking forest, okay?
And having that as your home-base-gypsypirate-palace-thing.
With a goddamn babbling brook right in the backyard.
Or a fucking moat. A MOAT.

Then grabbing someone.
And fucking leave the state together.
With like. A 20x10 suitcase and a fist full of cash.

And totally just live in random places for a couple months, or maybe a year.
Working odd jobs.
Or write for a living. Jesus. Write about your amazing stupid experiences together.

The people you meet. That weird piercing you both got because that totally hot girl talked you guys into it.

And if one of you hates a particular city or needs a break. Then they can go back home.
And get totally away from every city ever, and every person ever.
And when they're done being a hermit, they can meet you at the next city.
Or beat you there and check shit out.
Or just go somewhere. You'll meet up eventually.

And if you happen to meet someone cool enough along the way. Fuckin' take 'em.
And be a goddamn nomadic hippy trio.

Life would never suck.
Unless you picked the wrong people to be hippy nomads with.

But if you DIDN'T pick the wrong people.
Imagine how different your life would be.

People work a 9-5 every day just so they can go to Vegas for two weeks once a year.
Only to dread going back the entire time they're on vacation.
Tooooootally don't want that.

People talk about living with no regrets all the time.
But most of it's bullshit.
But who would regret that kind of freedom? Those kinds of experiences?

No one.

___________________________________________

Tom: I am leaving on friday to go to NC
Tom: Lina!!!
Tom: I AM GOING TO YOUR NORTHERN REGIONS.
Me: I've heard it's nice up there. xD
Tom: I bet it is.
Me: I miss you.
Tom: miss you too

God, I love him.
I haven't seen him in way too long.

It looks like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have decided to give birth in France this time around (the twins are due this summer). At the Cannes Film Festival, Jolie told reporters, "We are certainly thinking of France."

According to French newspaper Nice Matin, the dynamic duo just signed a 3-year lease on a $70 million chateau on the French Riviera.

The pre-Roman estate sits on nearly 1,000 acres in the South of France and is called Chateau Miraval. Let's just say it ain't shabby. It has 35 bedrooms and boasts a vineyard, lake, moat, forest, and 20 fountains. There are both indoor and outdoor pools, his-and-hers gyms, and an enormous banquet hall. The driveway alone is three miles long.

You know it's big when they need to take aerial views to show it all. Take a look!

Chateau Miraval is located in a tiny village called Brignol in the Var. A source close to the deal told Britain's Daily Mail:

"There's a lake and a swimming pool and fountains and fields with ponies, and it's surrounded by a huge forest, so no one will be able to take pictures of them or the kids. They're both thrilled, as they've been hunting for a place on the Riviera for over a year.

"Last year, Brad and Angelina took a helicopter along the Riviera, and they were literally landing in people's gardens of houses that they liked and were running in to ask if their properties were for sale," said the source. "They found this one the same way a few weeks ago."

Some of their neighbors will include Bono, the Beckhams, and Johnny Depp. It's good to know who you can go to if you need to borrow sugar. (If those were my neighbors, I might be running low on sugar a LOT.)

A source told E! News about the chateau:

"It's absolutely unbelievable. Brad and Angelina are thrilled, they love the place and have already been furniture shopping to fill the place as it's massive...The whole family can't wait to move in.

"The house is surrounded by a forest so they'll have total privacy, which is exactly what they're after. No one will ever be able to get pictures of them relaxing at home, it's just impossible."

They are raising their children (Maddox, 6, Pax, 4, Zahara, 3, and Shiloh, 2) to speak French as a second language. Jolie said at Cannes, "My children are starting to speak French, so being here is very good for them and their language."

Pitt and Jolie have been living with their kids in France since late April, bunking at Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen's villa in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Jolie and Allen became friends while filming Shark Tale together in 2004.

The Daily Mail's source said: 'Last year Brad and Angelina took a helicopter along the Riviera and they were literally landing in people's gardens of houses that they liked and were running in to ask if their properties were for sale. They found this one the same way a few weeks ago, and told the owner to name his price.'

The Pitt-Jolies already own multimillion-dollar homes in Cambodia, Berlin, Malibu, New Orleans (shown below), and L.A., and rent a $100,000-a-month 5-bedroom suite at the Waldorf. Some have speculated that they were the anonymous bidders behind the modernist Kaufmann House, as I reported last week (click here to read about it).

Thanks to Hooked on Houses reader Marie who asked me to write a post about this. I love when you guys give me ideas and suggestions.

Note: the reporting on this is sort of all over the place. People magazine reported that the chateau has 35 rooms, not bedrooms. Other sites reported 20 bedrooms, all depending on their sources. I've got calls in to both Brad and Angie and I'm sure they'll confirm the details for us as soon as they get settled in.

These photos were found at Us Magazine, Huffington Post, and NY Post.

If You’re Hooked on Famous Houses:

• The "Father of the Bride" House
• Christina Aguilera's Nursery for Baby Max
• Reese Witherspoon's Country House in Ojai
• Natalie Portman’s Long Island Digs
• Kenny Chesney’s Malibu Home
• Billy Joel’s Hamptons Hideaway
• Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony’s Nursery for Max and Emme
• Mary J. Blige’s Mansion in NJ
• Vera Wang’s Oceanfront Villa
• Stokesay Court, the estate used in the Keira Knightley film “Atonement”
• Tommy Hilfiger’s Stone Hill Estate
• Trista Sutter’s Nursery for Baby Max
• Coco Chanel's Parisian Apartment
  
• Conan O’Brien’s New Pad in Brentwood
• Dolly Parton’s Childhood Home in Tennessee
• Matthew Perry’s Bachelor Pad in L.A.
• Michael J. Fox’s Southampton Home

If You’re New Here: Hooked on Houses features decorating inspiration, celebrity house tours, fabulous before and afters, real estate news, fantasy open houses and more fun stuff. It is always 100% ad free. Comments from my readers are the only payment I receive, so I hope you’ll leave one! To see what we’re talking about today, click here.

Pete and I drove to Caerlaverock Castle today. I loved the fact that it had a water moat around it. It was beautiful as was the entire area.

It's Songkran in Thailand this week!

We took the family down to the moat around the old city in Chiang Mai to see the festival today. It's got to be the world's largest water fight! People roam the streets around the moat in their songtaews, pickup trucks and tuk-tuks, with giant barrels of water loaded in the back. Inside the barrels are not only water but also giant blocks of ice or frequently small children, who scoop buckets full of water and hand them to their older accomplices. Any unprotected passer-by is fair game, and we learned that you can even receive a bucketful through an open car window if you're not careful.

Even on the side streets, locals and shop owners are waiting with water guns, hoses and buckets outside the many shops that line either side of the road. There really isn't a safe distance at which to pass. They are happy to chase after you to give you a good dousing. One man picked up my daughter and carried her to a bucket where three people set about washing her hair - complete with shampoo! Everyone expects to get wet, and nothing is sacred - not even expensive digital cameras that we were foolish enough to remove from their ziplocked protection pouches.

It's incredible fun - the "best holiday ever!" according to my youngest - but what I really enjoyed
was the ice-breaking interaction between Thais and farangs. It didn't matter that we spoke different languages. It didn't matter that we look different or come from different cultures. Water, ironically, built the bridge between us. It created a whole new language that we could share, because everyone understands the squeal of surprise that occurs when ice water makes contact.

Something special happened today - a blending of cultures, a setting-aside of differences. We found common ground in a water fight and love for our neighbor in a shared smile and a laugh. Could it really be that simple? Could cultures come together just by focusing on similarities rather than differences? May God bless this shared experience and open windows of opportunity for a little Living Water.

"The moats that I've seen circled the castle and allowed you to protect yourself, and that's kind of what we're looking at here," Yuma county sheriff Ralph Ogden told the Associated Press.

The city is building a "security channel" along the border by replenishing a two-mile stretch of the Colorado river. The excavated soil would form two 15-foot high walls on both sides of the 400-foot wide area.

The site is a common crossing from Mexico to the US.  And Yuma officials want to flood it using the 15-foot levees to contain water pumped up from the ground by wells. This would create 20 acres of surface water and 15 acres of marsh land.

The city combined the moat plan with restoration of the wetlands to lure white liberal environmentalists.

Why do they want to turn the above desert into a marsh land? To curb undocumented immigration, increase risks during the crossing, and further enforce racist exploitative labor relations.

The city wants to turn

into

And into

Read more about the plan here.

Apparently many people have written that the castle was simply for show, that the military designs aren't right. However, he refuted this points to us rather convincingly. For example, they say that the gun openings don't point directly at the drawbridge, therefore wouldn't work. But, guns when it was built had an extreme spray effect, and therefore weren't meant to be aimed straight on anyways, and would have worked.

The murder holes were also evidence of this. They were undecorated, and were very high up to prevent spear and crossbow shot at the defenders. This would indicate that there was a practical intent to the design. Through these, though, they wouldn't pour boiling water or oil or anything like that, because with wooden floors you wouldn't want to have fires. Instead, they would dump quicklime through onto the attackers.

Apparently in Wales there was an example of a similar castle holding out for months with only 40 men against about 3,000. You didn't need many inside a castle if it was properly designed, and the men knew what they were doing. At the end of the tour we got instruction on the purposes and evolution of weaponry and armor at the time, and then best of all we got to try them on and mess around with them. The longbow impressed me quite a bit. It's as tall as I am, at about 6 feet, and could fire with power at a distance of about 300 meters.

On one campaign in France, an army of the English brought with them 2 million arrows, when an arrowhead would take about an hour to make.

I am traveling northwards, overland, through a forest. I come to a creek that has been changed into a canal and moat. On the other side is the wall of a deserted castle. I move in. It has huge stone rooms, but is unfurnished. Later some other join me and we occupy about 5 rooms in a small part of the castle. We have simple furnishings in the large rooms. The roofs are particularly tall at about 30 feet. 

One of the necessities while traveling is accommodation and most people would book for hotels or motels. I would want to book for cheap hotels in Crete. Crete is a the location of significant ancient history and a popular tourist destination. Like this picture above, that is the kind of houses and buildings that I can never get to see everyday, nor throughout my life so far. Crete is the largest of the Greek islands. It is the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean. There are many things to see at Crete. For example, the Venetian castle at Rethymno, many monuments as well as beautiful beaches.

Paphos Castle

Besides houses, castles are what I am eager to see. Cyprus is an Eurasian island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean south of Turkey, west of the Levant, north of Egypt, and east-southeast of Greece. If I have money, I would book for cheap hotels in Cyprus because I want to visit the Kolossi Castle and Paphos Castle. The Kolossi Castle is an ancient castle built in 1210. Paphos Castle on the other hand, represents one of the most distinctive landmarks of the city of Paphos.

Malta is another place not to be missed out. Beautiful landscapes and great buildings can be found at this place. I would book for cheap hotels in Malta just to see the different types of architectural buildings they have. I want to take as many photographs as I can.

EVENING AT THE RING MOAT, originally uploaded by ESOX LUCIUS.

The ring moat of the fortress Penserdijk near the town of Brielle on the island of Voorne in the Netherlands.

Ok! First the reality, even the greatest investors who proclaim the above tenet have lost money, even Buffet! However, it is important to understand the underlying essence of the statement.

"Making sure that the chances of a loss is minimal". As Benjamin Graham said "investment is most intelligent when it is most businesslike"

So how does one do that?

Ok if you're getting over eager to get to the meat of the article, move on. As one of the first things which you need is a LOT OF PATIENCE. It's like slow and steady wins the race; remember the childhood story about the Tortoise and the Hare...

The key to Rule #1 is making sure of a lot of things; like making sure the company has good numbers, it has to have a sustainable moat, great management etc. I'll examine a few of these things.

A tenet which is oft repeated to ensure Rule #1 is; make sure the company you're investing has a sustainable moat. Well, to figure out if a company has a sustainable moat is an exercise which is going to take you some time. As you have to not only assess the company's strengths and future prospects correctly, but also analyze how it stands up with regards to it's competitors. So time and patience, plays a big role. Now let's say you've found a company which has a great set of past numbers, good management and seems to have a reasonable moat, you might think you've found a winner right? Wrong! Past data is not very good at predicting future results. (Read up Tweedy, Browne Study entitled "Great 10-year Record = Great future, Right? How well did companies with great 10-year records as of December 31,1990 perform in the next 7 years? A study of the predictability of long-term earnings and intrinsic value growth.").

Very few companies with great past data do well in the future. Here are a couple of reasons which could change the scenario for your potential candidate.

1. The managers who you love and are running the company, change!

Take the case of APOLLO GROUP (APOL)... for no clear reason the CEO has moved on... There is an interesting discussion, at Phil Town's blog about the same (http://www.philtown.typepad.com/phil_towns_blog/2006/03/your_homework_a.html)

2. New technology, new way of doing business leaves your golden goose far behind.

Newspapers a safe bet of the past are struggling with the Internet publishing phenomena. The viability of Garmin a leader in the GPS space faces a question mark, it must adjust to changes in access to content and to an attempt to take GPS out of the car and put it into mobile phone users' pockets. (http://www.smartmoney.com/onedaywonder/index.cfm?story=20071001)

3. Mr. Market has a mood swing...

The list is endless....

Now, when you think about all of this you might realize that Rule #1 is a hard proposition; however, the underlying principle is very simple and clear. You need to be extremely careful with your money. You need to really understand the company where you're putting your money, and you need to have a great level of confidence in the fact that the company is going to continue to do well.

So how does one do that?

I'm including below a longish quote from Buffet's 1996 Letter to Shareholders, read carefully there are some amazing jewels within this quote.

"Let me add a few thoughts about your own investments. Most investors, both institutional and individual, will find that the best way to own common stocks is through an index fund that charges minimal fees. Those following this path are sure to beat the net results (after fees and expenses) delivered by the great majority of investment professionals.

Should you choose, however, to construct your own portfolio, there are a few thoughts worth remembering. Intelligent investing is not complex, though that is far from saying that it is easy. What an investor needs is the ability to correctly evaluate selected businesses. Note that word "selected": You don't have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.

To invest successfully, you need not understand beta, efficient markets, modern portfolio theory, option pricing or emerging markets. You may, in fact, be better off knowing nothing of these. That, of course, is not the prevailing view at most business schools, whose finance curriculum tends to be dominated by such subjects. In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses - How to Value a Business, and How to Think About Market Prices.

Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now. Over time, you will find only a few companies that meet these standards - so when you see one that qualifies, you should buy a meaningful amount of stock. You must also resist the temptation to stray from your guidelines: If you aren't willing to own a
stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio's market value."

Warren Buffet is talking about a number of things which you need to keep in mind:

1. Circle of Competence: Question yourself, do you really understand this business? If it's a business which is complicated, move on. You really need to understand the business. It has to be in your circle of competence. Refer to Buffet's quote above once again to understand what he means by Circle of competence. "What an investor needs is the ability to correctly evaluate selected businesses. Note that word "selected": You don't have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence."

Similarly he mentions "easily-understandable business" This is extremely personal, YOU NEED TO understand the business. For instance, I don't understand the Biotech industry or the Textile industry, however I can understand software services, restaurants. Look for businesses which you understand. Maybe you love to play video games and understand the gaming industry who it's leaders are etc. maybe that's your thing. Buffet has often been criticized for not investing in technology companies, his reasons for not investing are simply because he doesn't understand the businesses. There are thousands of listed companies to choose from, just make sure they are within your Circle of Competence. Learn all you can about the company, it's products, it's markets, it's efficiency.

2. As Buffet says in his 1995 letter to Shareholders: In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable "moats."

Notice the wording here, "unbreachable moats". Not "a Moat", or a "good Moat", he specifically says "UNBREACHABLE". On another occasion he responded to a question on, what is the most important thing he looks for when evaluating a company. Without hesitation, he replied, "Sustainable competitive advantage."

Unbreachable Moats

So how does one identify an unbreachable MOAT or a sustainable competitive advantage?

a) Often clues of an ubreachable MOAT are when a company's product name changes the language you use, for e.g. in India Bottled water is called by the name "Bisleri". This is one of the most famous bottled water products in India. Most often when you want bottled water at a store, people just say give me a Bisleri. Similarly, Coke changed the way people asked for a pop (soda) in the 1988 time frame.
b) There are other kinds of MOAT's too, Barrier to Change being very expensive or put another way High Customer Switching Costs. For instance Microsoft has this advantage from the large installed base of it's software worldwide. Almost any PC user would be able to read a copy of document prepared in Microsoft Word or Excel. Companies which have deployed Microsoft software, will find the cost of moving their entire platform to another product platform an expensive proposition and hence, they would continue with Microsoft's software. It's MOAT is largely protected by the Barrier to Change. Another similar example would be Paychex.

c) Toll Collectors - If you want to buy or sell something on-line you're going to use E-Bay because that's the location with all the buyers and all the sellers. Similarly Newspapers in some cities act as Toll bridges, if you're trying to reach most of the people in the city.

d) Economies of Scale/Low Cost Provider - Wal-mart has enormous power over it's suppliers to get rock bottom prices because they sell so much stuff. Nobody can touch their prices.

e) Secret (patents and trade secrets): IBM earns billions of dollars by virtue of the licensing it various patents. Companies such as Coco cola with it's secret formula have a moat which most competitors find difficult if not impossible to breach.

f) Businesses which aren't susceptible to Change - That's one of the key things to look out for when identifying an unbreachable moat. A MOAT today might be gone tomorrow, patents are good but they can run out in time, however good characteristics of an unbreachable MOAT are businesses which have very little change.

This point is quite important and I'll leave Buffet to explain this, as he said in the 1999 annual meeting:

Our own emphasis is on trying to find businesses that are predictable in a general way as to where they'll be in 10 or 15 or 20 years. That means we look for businesses that in general aren't going to be susceptible to very much change. We view change as more of a threat investment-wise than an opportunity. That's quite contrary to the way most people are looking at equities right now. With a few exceptions, we do not get enthused about change as a way to make a lot of money. We're looking for the absence of change to protect ways that are already making a lot of money and allow them to make even more in the future.

"When we look at a business and see lots of change coming, 9 times out of 10, we're going to pass -- whereas when we see something that is very likely to look the same 10-20 years from now, we feel much more confident about predicting it. Take Coca-Cola. It's still selling a product very, very similar to one that was sold 110+ years ago. The fundamentals of distribution, talking to the consumer and all that sort of thing haven't changed at all. Your analysis of Coca-Cola 50 years ago could pretty well serve as an analysis today.

"We're more comfortable in that kind of business. It means we miss a lot of very big winners. But we wouldn't know how to pick them out anyway. It also means we have very few big losers -- and that's quite helpful over time. We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff."

Margin of Safety

One of the most important concepts to ensure Rule #1, is the concept of Margin of Safety. You may feel confident that you've got a company which has great numbers, an unbreachable Moat, however, determining the value of a company isn't an exact science. You might use a DCF(Discounted Cash Flow) method or a PE based valuation, or a Sum of the Parts etc. However these give you a range in which the company is valued. As Buffet said in his 2000 letter to shareholders

"Common yardsticks such as dividend yield, the ratio of price to earnings or to book value, and even growth rates have nothing to do with valuation except to the extent they provide clues to the amount and timing of cash flows into and from the business"

The Intelligent Investor knows that he needs to build in further protection to follow Rule #1 completely. It pays to make sure there’s a decent ‘margin of safety’ between your estimate of intrinsic value and the price you pay for a stock.

In closing, I'd like to refer to what Buffet said in his 1990 letter to shareholders:

"In the final chapter of The Intelligent Investor Ben Graham said: "Confronted with a challenge to distill the secret of sound investment into three words, we venture the motto, Margin of Safety." Forty-two years after reading that, I still think those are the right three words."

Here is a picture of the trench. The depth is deceiving. I could stand in the ditch and barely see over the dirt piled up on the left side.

So, to the subject of the blog. It is hard to see a 200' trench without the kid in you coming up with some imaginative ways to take advantage of it. A moat. Yeah, that would be cool!

To follow-up on the mailbox situation, we got our first mail today!!! Sad to say there were not any letters from anyone. I am glad to say no bills either. Guess it is a wash. We got a card from the post office to fill out and return and an add for the local general store.

Hacé click en el mapa para ver el recorrido animado de la Vuelta al Mundo

A Roberto Rey y Susana Berri, por haber estado allí cuando llegamos y engordarnos en una Buenos Aires en crisis.
A Jorge Rey, Daniel Arribere, Flavia Ferrandina y Flor Melamed por prestarnos sus departamentos para que tengamos varios techos propios en Buenos Aires.
A Diego Rey, por ayudarnos a buscar un sótano donde guardar la colección de botellas antiguas de Pablo.
A Maria José Baglivo, por su ayuda con el logotipo y la web del viaje.
A Diego Cosentino, gerente del FITAC en Buenos Aires, por los mapas, el aliento y el apoyo de la organización en el viaje hacia Alaska.
A Juan Bezmalinovich, de la Estancia El Escorial, por la pata de cordero y los mates.
A los gendarmes Hugo y Felipe del destacamento de Moat, cerca de Ushuaia, por las milanesas de ternero cuatrereado y los mates en otro fin del mundo.
A Maxi Álvarez por dejarnos su casa en Bariloche y volver con sus padres por unos días.
A Gustavo Martínez, nuevamente, por abrirme las puertas de las oficinas de Ogilvy en Santiago de Chile.
A Herman y Candelaria Zapp, que atraparon su sueño de viajar y lo compartieron con nosotros y otros miles de personas.
A Carlos González, por contactarnos con Rubén Morzilli, jefe de cartografía del ACA (Automóvil Club Argentino), que nos llenó de libros y mapas para que sigamos por el buen camino en la Patagonia.
A las 129 personas que nos enviaron emails de apoyo cuando apareció la entrevista en la revista Viva del diario Clarín.
A José Suparo, de Aberturas Suparo, Ameghino 1520, Campana, por la caja de aluminio que llegará a todos los límites del mundo.
A Adrián Zidar y Marcos Acosta, por sus consejos y ayuda para reparar los metales oxidados de la furgoneta.
A Roberto Moravé, de pinturas Farbenlac en Los Cardales, por las pinturas epoxi para que resuciten los fierros de la furgoneta.
A Agus, Pitu y Sombra, por los buenos ratos.
A Salta y los salteños, por abrirnos su corazón, grande como un país, robarnos un pedacito del nuestro. Con su simpatía y su acogida durante el primer día de venta del libro que editamos en Buenos Aires, nos demostraron que nuestra historia podría ser la historia de todos.
A Nicolás Barbieri y su familia, de Tucumán, por abrirnos las puertas de su casa y prepararnos un asado bajo la lluvia. Porque... ¿de qué otra manera se puede decir bienvenido en Argentina?
A los chicos de Rosario que nos regalaron el mate que tanto nos faltaba, en Cusco
A morf, cuatrero, por los dos kilos de yerba que nos dejó en el techo de la furgoneta, también en Cusco.
A Juan y Graciela, de Córdoba. Nos cruzamos en Puerto Inka. Ellos bajaban desde Miami (¡en 2 meses!) y nos pasaron algunos mapas de rutas de Estados Unidos.

.

Encuentra más historias sobre Argentina en http://viajeros4x4x4.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/argentina-7/

Si te gustan las historias de la Vuelta al Mundo puedes conseguir un libro que editamos sobre el cruce del continente africano. Se llama La Vuelta al Mundo en 10 Años: Africa. Encuentra más información en http://viajeros4x4x4.wordpress.com/2007/02/03/la-vuelta-al-mundo-en-10-anos-africa/