i'm just going to be completely honest here and say i have some trouble seeing coveralls as attractive.  i may some day change my opinion on that subject.  i figure, if you happen to have the sort of architect that wraps buildings in tyvek, you might as well wrap that architect in tyvek.  maybe caulk around the wrist holes too. 

i will also humbly admit to my general lack of fashion sense.  i did not notice the lacking belt in the tyvek suits.  i don't know what dupont was thinking when releasing an unfinished garment, but i do think you have a little latitude to improve their shortcomings.

here is some lady in poland that paints tyvek clothes.

swedish with superman belt buckle, of course!

architectural overalls

also good if you're in Rammstein

my vote is for swedish coveralls, although you need a matching painters hat and  appropriate bicycle to carry supplies.

donna, between your two suggestions must say i like the basic one better. but i like curtkram's suggestion even more... function vs form?

Or you can just make your newly splattered outfit your painting duds and go get yourself something nice. Like the leather overalls above.

Swedish with Super man belt buckle and of course an ascot.

i bet if you got leather overalls (with a superman belt buckle and ascot), you could get one of the other people there to offer to do the painting for you...

forget the fancy purpose-made coverall stuff. i keep a pair of paint-covered jeans and a paint-covered denim shirt in the trunk of my car at all times. and work boots.

and I'm betting it's steven's old air-brushed denim outfit circa 1990:

How about an oversized old dress shirt that you wear backwards?

Has anyone noticed how Donna's wardrobe has recently become a rather prominent topic here?

I think it's time to start a new thread ...

I often dress nicely enough, and the paint jobs are small enough, that I don't want to change out of one outfit then back again.  Which is why coveralls are such a nice solution.  I do keep a pair of snow boots and a pair of Palladium lowtop boots in my desk drawer at all times, for when I have to go to the Park.

I just read through the threads about that article Dear Architects: I Am Sick of Your Shit that came out in 2007.  I went looking for them because that article reminded me of the current Starbucks kerfuffle.  

Man, I was a LOT nicer back then than I am now!  So much more patient and generous. 

So that was pre-2008 when the world went to hell.  Is it the world that has made me so angry, or is it just middle age? 

Do you guys feel angrier now than you did 5 years ago?

yes.

^   No

Less angry, and more aware that my choices in life are the best way to have a positive effect on the world. Which doesn't mean a lack of frustration.

Less angry, but far less tolerant of BS in any way shape or form. Which means no mass or corporate media including National Propaganda Radio. Also zero tolerance for politics, politicians, lawyers, etc.

Create the world you want to live in.

worked for george bush!

angrier?  maybe.  certainly more worried.  i think that is middle age creeping up on me and fear for my kids and what I can provide for them to be honest...

I was way angrier back in 2007.

Less angry than in 2007, but I was pregnant and fuming.  

I'd say, though, that I am much more confused now, though.  But I don't get as riled up.  It just isn't worth the energy.

I'm less angry in general, but more situationally angry - mostly at motorists who aren't patient enough to wait behind me for 10 seconds in a shared lane until the bike lane begins again.  yes, like your life is so important that you'd seriously injure or kill someone to get there on time.

speaking of fashion and bikes, young men around these parts are starting to look like Morrissey circa 1987.  Down to the hair, glasses, steel bikes... it's weird - especially having lived through that era.

and what's with the bright blue homer simpson pants everyone's wearing lately?

Yeah, Will, I know.  I would say that the worry tends to manifest in anger, in my case. I have a very short fuse. 

Current conflict is over the flood insurance rates in my neighborhood, which are tripling.  My property value just took a huge, huge hit as who would want to buy a house that requires $6,000 per year in flood insurance? No one. So I'm furious over the Biggs-Waters Flood Act of 2012 that ends subsidized flood insurance rates.  Then I think to myself but why should people who live in flood zones get subsidized by everyone else if they choose to live there? then that folds into my feelings on the healthcare debate and how I think smokers should have to pay more because why should I pay for their lung cancer treatment? then I feel like a terrible selfish person then I worry that I'm thinking like a Tea Partier and then I give up and go draw pretty pictures of cast iron hand rails.

I think the more you drive, the more you should pay in health insurance costs.

I'm so old I have forgotten how I felt in 2007.....must have been a lackluster year.
I did run across something recently regarding my Electric Bill.  Seems like our fine Electric Utility "Connecticut Light and Power" was listing to Governor Rick Perry from Texas when he visited Connecticut earlier this year  courting Connecticut Manufacturing  to move  to Texas . CL&P  jumped right in and moved  their Customer Payment Center to Texas.  So now every time I pay my Bill it goes to Texas...and doesn't stay  in Connecticut.  You think I should have lots of rage about that...?  Fricking Public Utility  Commission should look into there sweet arrangement with Texas.

Snook, I promise you that the typical Texan isn't seeing a dime of your money.  It's going straight into Rick Perry's pocket.

Sarah,

I think that is the problem. Wacko's Getting our hard earned money.

Join the club.  The man has never held a job outside of politics, and is a millionaire.  We all picked the wrong profession.

maybe you can build a sandbag dam around your whole house that goes higher then the flood plain, then cover it with some eifs to make it look nice.

Most teachers with degrees aren't thinkers and problem solvers.

as someone who knows quite a few educators:  WTF?  You sound like a self-rightious jerk.

There is a difference between Teachers and Educators....Sarah is talking about Educators, the problem solvers.

toaster, are you joking? Sarah's not a jerk.

Also, you missplled righteous. And I misspelled misspelled.

Due to the current Starbucks kerfuffle, I'm trying to be wary of broad-brush generalizations.  Surely there are some teachers with a lot of degree and no experience who aren't super effective at teaching, and there are obviously some non-teachers who are super skilled at teaching.

gruen I'm getting an elevation certificate soon.  I have no basement (slab on grade which IMO is he best way to build a house, or stilts, or a houseboat) which helps.  Maybe I could jack the whole thing up a few feet?

I like lifting the house. Treehouses are great. Basements suck. Slabs are good for radiant heat, however.

Starbucks buys > 500 million pounds of coffee annually. Less than 1% comes from farmers who get a living wage. Their so-called "Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices" are bullshit. Profits are around $7.5 billion a year.

My husband has a partial degree in education. I am glad he quit. It was really stupid. I'd guess about 60% of the other teacher candidates were there because they didn't know what else to do or wanted their summers off or some other reason other than to educate. Really disappointing.

School is about conformity anyways, it you think it is about education you are out of it.

Well, certainly conformity is part of it - learning to be a member of society, but tint I think your statement raises the question what IS education?

Play is learning, every parent knows that.  Is education supposed to be teaching kids how to add, or how to figure out that if they need to quantify the total accumulated number of more than one group of objects they should consider if there is already a system in place to do so or whether they need to create a new one?

Maybe some schools teach that it's important to learn addition without actually teaching you how to add? Is that what you mean by conformity?

The thing I love about my son's school (International Baccalaureate) is they teach how to add but also why - across cultures - adding matters, why in one culture it might be valued and in another not, and what the arguments for both points of view are.  He also learned to line up with his peers and be quiet when walking in the hallway, which I wasn't crazy about when he was a kindergartener but see value to now, certainly.

Maybe some schools teach that it's important to learn addition without actually teaching you how to add? Is that what you mean by conformity?

Why would that be conformity?

And why would your son standing in line be conformity? Why isn't that learning to stand in a line?

tint, my point is what do YOU mean by "conformity"?

Donna, then you should illustrate that you are trying to understand my position instead of try to make me look stupid. I'm sorry to have intruded on your club here.

i dunno, don't think learning to teach at uni is a bad thing. No more than learning to architect at uni is bad. it's what comes next that makes the difference. mentoring and such.

Higher standards for educators is a fantastic idea, as long as it doesn't just mean our teachers come from university. But you know, instead of becoming bankers and lawyers and doctors it would be cool if the brightest in any nation chose to teach instead.  In fact we should all do that anyway, at some point in our lives.  Teaching is important stuff.

It is serious business here, for sure. Teachers are  respected (sensei is what we call teachers and doctors both), and relatively well paid.  They are also very well educated themselves. Curriculum is still crazy, cuz you know... its Japan.  But education is way better than anything I ever had. No ifs ands or buts about that.

Would love to send my kids to International Baccalaureate Donna. Here its about $1500 a month for tuition though, so forget it. A bit out of our price range. Those schools are crazy awesome though. Your boy is lucky if its anything like the ones I have visited.

tint, I offered up my interpretation of what you said - that school teaches conformity (I agree, in part), and also teaches other stuff, and asked the question "What IS education".  I'm interested in your perspective because I know you're in the education world now.  Jeez, calm down - you said you're less angry now after all ;-). 

Will, my IB is a public magnet program, so free - yay! It's the only thing keeping me in Indy right now.

so, from a social standpoint a school creates an environment where peer pressure can teach little girls they have to be skinny and little boys they have to play football.  i assume that is an overly-simplified take on how schools teach conformity?  i don't think the "conformity" thing comes into play from teachers so much as from other students right?  unless i'm completely mistaken.

education would be providing kids the basis of reading, writing, and arithmetic, which they will need as a foundation for any further educational goals.  also maybe a foundation in history and in america our kids should learn a little bit about what's actually in the constitution so they don't grow up screaming about how they don't like the legislation the president is unilaterally not passing (hint: the president doesn't get to pass legislation).  in theory, a parent could teach those things, but the standard system in a school is far better since they have the available resources, like access to text books and curriculum,  and the time.  a teacher spends all day teaching, whereas parents often have to do things like go to work.

also, there is the 'crazy' factor. schools are essentially a part of a larger community, so there is pressure on the school to not push too far towards an extreme.  as an example, when you teach science in school, you're not just going over some things that have been discovered.  the point is to teach the methodology that goes in to building a theory, developing experiments to test the theory, then confirming or busting the theory.  when teaching evolution, a decent teacher isn't just going to say that evolution happened, they're going to talk about what darwin observed and how he came the conclusion he did so the student can learn to apply the same sort of process in their real lives as they grow older.  teaching kids that creation happened because you read it in a book doesn't teach them how to think critically or rationally observe a situation or really anything helpful.  from an education standpoint, you choosing to believe the bible is no different that me choosing to believe harry potter.  pick what you believe, then figure out how to confirm your belief by establishing and observing a critical process.  teaching evolution over creation isn't "conforming," it's just obvious common sense.

if you get rid of the overall socially accepted system of education and have some parents teaching metric while others are teaching english, those kids are just not going to be able to work together in the real world as they get older.  if you tell your kids this thing happened because you read it and they shouldn't question it, you're going to get a bunch of stupid kids and that will harm your communities ability to function.

As someone who taught middle school for a year and loved it (but isn't currently a teacher although I do facilitate education in another field), i think there is some value to an actual education degree.

I know the most difficult aspect of the job for me was not the "teaching" but the classroom management. Those skills are just one of the things you learn in an actual education degree program. Least of all because you have to generally complete some sort of practicum/internship and have a mentor.

Sure you can pick that sort of stuff up, on the job as it were but why not be more prepared or at least have some exposure ahead of time...

morning TC!

See, now I see the conformity issue completely different.  I see it as schools teaching kids to do things only one way, and not explain why.  Teaching the test, and the problem, essentially.  

How fascinating that we are having this conversation, and we all have these vastly different interpretations of words and ideas, like conformity, teaching, educating, ect.