Vacation is coming to an end. I did not wear 2 sleeveless tops and a pair of shoes and the bathing suit. Everything else was used...except the rain coats. They did their job though as the weather has been fabulous...I expected Budapest to be hot but it wasn't so didn't need sleeveless. I was the only one who wore full length to the palace, but I felt comfortable nonetheless. I was surprised that someone wore full length to the farewell...in fact people seemed to dress up more for that than the palace. I wore the shorts on deck and the scarves worked well for chilly mornings or buses or cathedrals. Lots of locals were wearing them. I did see everything though...shorts, capris, cargo pants, jeans, skirts, dresses, you name it. A lot of the men wore belted shorts with all combos of footwear including sneakers or sandals with socks. So the bottom line is comfort first, especially in footwear as you walk, walk, walk, and then walk a little further. But just like the US, anything goes.

I'm so impressed with all of you... Here's a tip that has worked very well for me in the financial category. Instead of keeping folders for all the categories of things I pay for, I bought a plastic accordion folder with twelve sections and labeled them by month. Everything gets filed behind the month in which I paid it. I print the receipts for my online transactions - including the list of bills I authorize my bank to pay on line, to which I attach the receipt section of those bills - and include them. Any bill I pay conventionally is marked with the date and check number. Then at the end of the year, I pitch all the ones that don't have "legs," file the rest in their broad categories (house, insurance, medical, etc.) and start again. If I need to check a payment, I can find it really fast, and I don't keep things I don't need. And, as an aside... there is no such thing as "just a secretary." My mother, who is now 89, was one of those old-fashioned career executive secretaries...her rank was second only to the Governor's secretary, and she was paid a relative pittance to be, in essence, her boss's brain, voice, gatekeeper, protocol officer, and, because she is charming, outspoken, and socially connected, occasionally his wardrobe critic! She was secretary to six consecutive heads and the boards of the government council that oversees our state universities and colleges, and wrapped up her career as secretary to a university president. Her continuing filing advice is this: KISS (keep it simple, sister!) She advocates purely alphabetical systems, filing back to front in the folders (newest in front), and always has one file called "Hoorah's Nest" in which she keeps pure silliness. We lost a vast well of productivity and civility when we decided that computers made these (usually) women who ran the world obsolete. And I think they are coming back as we finally learn the honor in this work, and become willing to pay for it at a decent rate. Off the soapbox now...!

Don't know if there is a perfect answer. But flushing more money down the toilet is not the big fix for sure. Lets see...the little guy has created too much debt, has lived beyond his or her means and can't pay their bills. So we need the bailout, so the little guy can borrow more money, continue to live beyond their means and create more debt that they can't pay? Sounds like the bailout, is more of a Ponzi scheme not meant to bailout the taxpayer, but instead reamout the taxpayer as it makes the rich...richer. Would an alcoholic be fixed if he inherited a whiskey factory? Would a limitless supply of free alcohol cure what ails him? Or would it just increase the sickness? We have learned nothing from our bailout mess. We can see this from the debate on how to water down the 'mark to market' accounting standards. Instead of restoring high financial and accounting standards, we are further relaxing them, in effect increasing the sickness that got us here. I would add that any accounting standard that discards mark to market accounting would be off my screen for investments. Even with mark to market, we have all these accounting lies. Can you imagine how it will be when asset values can be assigned by the holders of those assets with no reckoning with what the 'actual market value' of those assists are? One of CNBC's commentators chewed out Rick Santelli a while back telling him there is 'no time' for discussion of ideology in the bailout crisis. We must have the $700 billion NOW! At CNBC they seem to think that if money is just thrown at the problem all will be fine. If there is no time to change the underlying sickness in our broken capitalist system, how will more alcohol fix the alcoholic...or in this case more money fix the dishonest, greedy thrives of Wall Street CNBC? Every once in a while CNBC offers some words of wisdom other than the poker playing, crap shooting, compulsive gambler mentality of trading that you promote. Rick Santelli offered one such pearl of wisdom when he said the powers that be in America need to 'take their medicine like men' and stop trying to avoid the penalties of their financial shenanigans at all cost. To avoid taking their medicine is just making matters worse. Fix the underlying sickness before you loan out a dime. Take your medicine like men CNBC as well as thieves of Wall Street. Don't give taxpayer money out, not a dime - loan with high grade collateral and interest. But only loan if absolutely necessary. But don't force the taxpayer to buy toxic waste that no one in their right mind would buy. Put the rich, greedy, lying bastards of Wall Street on the line and not the taxpayer that can hardly make ends meet. Paulson had over 30 years on Wall Street. Paulson is said to be worth half a billion dollars and we never heard a peep of warning out of him until the crisis was full blown. This seems to be a case of honor dies where the interest lies.

Totally agree with nearly everything here - I was going to list some of your best points, but they are most of them! Some comments / questions, though: 7: Doors should relate to the ground; windows should relate to the sky. I'm with Mrs Pete asking for further clarification. I figure doors are best at preferred access and egress points, but I can see in a passive solar way, taking this into account for window sizes and placements. 11. Design circulation through rooms, rather than halls, where possible. Of course, you don't want to circulate through bedrooms to other bedrooms, so sometimes a hall is essential. Also, not a fan of Jack and Jill bathrooms, or closets that lead elsewhere. 19. Pocket doors are either loved or hated.. I worried about high humidity issues, and so did not use these. I don't hate them, however - but I do remember someone temporarily getting stuck in his pocket door entry office in a climate-controlled building. But I see their functionality in the appropriate space. As a corollary, I'd note: If you have the right sort of house there is nothing wrong with appropriate barn doors. Preferably for a closet, say. (I have a log home. They would have worked here, but I have neither barn nor pocket doors after all.) 35. Maximize daylight. Well, maybe not on the west side... 58. Outdoor spaces which are "left over" will rarely be used. Well, not until I put in the chicken coops, the raised veggie beds, or the maple syrup taps... Plus, I like the vista. 81. Bring the indoors out and the outdoors in. Well, maybe not the mud on the boots or the chicken feathers... Or, worse yet, the ticks. 83. If there is one design principle you should cherish, it’s hierarchy.. I would like to see a further explanation of hierarchy in this context?