Sunday, August 21, 2011

Wooden Wheelchair Ramp Building and Seven Things You Must Know

I have recently noticed a great deal of interest in information on building wooden wheelchair ramps. While I recently wrote an article that covered the building of concrete ramps here at my own residence. I thought I would cover building a wooden wheelchair ramp. I have in the past built several wooden ramps.

Wooden ramps come in a wide range of sizes and materials. So we will cover the general rules you must follow in order to build a sturdy and most importantly safe wooden wheelchair ramp. I say most of all safe because I have seen and even used some wooden ramps that to my mind were more dangerous than not having a ramp. There are seven thing you must know in order to build a safe and sturdy wooden ramp.

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1. Do I really need a wooden ramp here or would something else be better?

2. Remember the rules of ramp building. Your angle is 1:2 or 1" rise = 12" run, every 30" rise a landing of 60" long. Avoid long runs break them up if you can.

3. Materials must pressure treated or rated for outdoor use. Use stainless steel or galvanized carriage bolts and screws. You'll round footing forms and post brackets as well.

4. The tools you will need are very basic. You will need a hand saw or circular saw. A drill with a 1/2" bit to drill holes for the carriage bolts. A ratchet to tighten the nuts. A tape measure, a carpenters square, level, and cordless drill driver are other tools you will need. You will also need a post hole digger and a shovel.

5. Any structure is only as good as it's foundation. So we take special care with the footings of our wheelchair ramp. They should be place every six feet forming a 6' x 4' rectangle with a post bracket embedded in the top.

6. Don't make it too steep. Always check your angle and use the ratio. If it is too steep the user won't make it up.

7. Put it together right! Use screws for the decking and nuts and bolts at all the joints. Think of the ramp as a bridge for a wheelchair and build it as such. Don't just nail it together.

As we can see building a wooden wheelchair ramp is not a simple undertaking. It is however within the skill level of the average do-it-yourself builder. And while I wrote an article covering the building of a concrete ramp it was a rather simple threshold ramp you would encounter in typical slab construction home. I would not however recommend a concrete ramp project of the scale I have just described for the do-it-yourself builder unless you have prior experience with concrete projects of this scale.

Wooden Wheelchair Ramp Building and Seven Things You Must Know

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A Brief History of Advertising With Promotional Calendars

Calendar advertising has a rich history dating back to the 1850's when The Ketterlinus Lithographic Manufacturing Co. of Philadelphia began printing calendars that contained advertising. Promotional wall calendars became even more popular as printing technology improved. In 1878, Andrew and Jacob Geiger opened a printing shop in Newark, NJ and began printing advertising calendars, fans, posters and other paper ephemera.

Calendar advertising became increasingly popular in the late 1880's, thanks to the efforts of two enterprising Ohio newspapermen, Jasper Freemont Meek and his competitor, Henry Beach. They were fierce competitors, and between them, they figured out how to put ads on a myriad of items from aprons, hats and a wide variety of household items. They even invented the classic metal trays advertising colas, which are now prized by antique collectors.

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Two more newspapermen, Thomas Murphy and Edward Burke Osborne, both of Red Oak, IA, are credited with inventing art calendars that became immensely popular in the late 1880's. Like Jasper Meek and Henry Beach, they needed new business to keep their presses busy and bring in additional sales. Osborne printed a watercolor of the new Red Oak courthouse on cardboard, printed advertising around the painting and added a calendar pad. It was a huge success.

Until then, nobody had thought to place attractive art on calendars. The two men purchased fine photographs and paintings from a variety of artists and improved their printing capabilities to include 3-color printing. By 1894, Murphy and Osborne employed a total of 94 people, including 14 traveling salesmen and printed an estimated three million calendars.

At the end of 1894, Murphy sold his interest in the business to Osborne, who moved the company to Newark, NJ to be closer to art and business centers in the New York metropolitan areas. Osborne then seized upon a new printing technology - letterpress printing - to produce calendars of the highest quality. The resulting success of those calendars allowed him to set up printing plants in Toronto, London and Sydney, Australia.

Since then, promotional calendars have continued to grow in popularity as a promotional product. Today, imprinted promotional calendars continue to be ranked among the three top product groups in the promotional products industry.

A Brief History of Advertising With Promotional Calendars

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How Can I Get My Hair To Grow Faster: 4 Answers To Your Hair Loss Malady

Are you already distressed with how you keep finding yourself asking "how can I get my hair to grow faster" over and over again? Maybe you have exhausted all possibilities to make your hair longer and more beautiful, but still it continues to thin out and thus, giving you receding hairline. If you would like to put a stop top your thinning hair right away, make sure to grab some hair care tips and tricks that will help you address your hair problems and finally give you the answer to your question "how can I get my hair to grow faster"? Here are just a few of the things you will need to know about making your hair grow faster that you should know and follow:

1. Ensure Proper Nutrition

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Take care that you eat loads of protein-enriched foods to make sure that you will get the help you need as far as growing your hair is concerned. In case you do not know yet, protein is very essential to make your hair longer faster. As a matter of fact, it has been proven that if you will religiously attempt to have a protein full-packed meal three times in a day, you will immediately see the results you have been looking for in just a matter of 40 days.

2. Flood Your Diet With Protein, Protein And Protein

Make sure you start incorporating dairy products into your regular diet such as cheese and milk, eggs, meat, whole grains, nuts, legumes, beans, fish and countless other protein-packed foods. That way, your hair follicles will receive the amount of proteins they need to stimulate your hair growth. Keep in mind that a body with little protein will surely develop hair that is frizzy, dull and damaged. Since there is damage, hair will start falling; thus, the thinning out.

3. Go For The More Natural Remedies Of Growing Hair

Not too many people know it but there are actually a lot of natural hair remedies that can help you grow your hair faster. All you will need to do is find the ones that will be most suitable to you. Try hot oil treatments using coconut oil or Mira oil. You will just have to warm the oil first then apply by deep massaging into your scalp. Massage your scalp really well so that the essential oils will penetrate the very roots of your hair and thereby, trigger the hair follicles to grow longer at a much quicker pace.

4. Go For A Regular Head Massage

Another tip so that you may finally stop asking the question "how can I get my hair to grow faster" over and over again is to pamper yourself with thirty minute massages every day. This is known to be a very beneficial activity especially for hair loss sufferers since massaging can trigger the blood to circulate more efficiently. With an enhanced blood flow, the hair follicles get activated to produce more growth hormones which are very necessary to grow hair.

How Can I Get My Hair To Grow Faster: 4 Answers To Your Hair Loss Malady

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How to Grow a Pineapple

The first thing you need to grow a pineapple is a pineapple. The pineapple (ananas comosus) is a bromeliad; in fact, one of the few in its family that is edible. However, the fruit of an unripe pineapple is poisonous and will irritate both your mouth and throat. Even the ripe fruit of the houseplant pineapple is not nearly as luscious and sweet as that grown in the sands of the tropics; still, the pineapple is a striking, interesting, and unusual plant to add to your collection.

The pineapple is a biennial. The first year it produces leaves and the second year it produces the flowering stalk that becomes the fruit. Actually, the pineapple flower becomes the popular fruit. A small leaf-like cluster produces up to 200 dagger shaped bracts that are the flowers. These flowers have immature ovaries that are called inflorescences. Each ovary turns into a seedless berry, the berries fuse together into one unit: the multiple fruit or sorosis we call the pineapple.

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So how do you grow a pineapple?

To grow a pineapple, purchase a whole one at your local grocery. Cut off the top, making sure your cut contains some of the fruit. Let this dry in the sun for a couple of days. When this plug has "hardened off", plant the top fruit side down. Cover the plug only enough to make sure it is firmly seated in your pot. Water the plant weekly until it is established; then water only when the sand is dry to your touch.

One of the interesting parts of growing pineapple plants is that they absorb nutrients and moisture through their leaves more than through their roots. When you water a pineapple plant, pour the water into the vase-like center of the leaves. Alternatively, you can mist the leaves with a spray bottle, concentrating the spray near the center of the plant, but continuing until the surrounding sand is damp.

How to Grow a Pineapple

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Saturday, August 20, 2011

Getting a Spiral Staircase

Are you looking to build a spiral staircase in your own house? If you want to build a good looking staircase, and you don't want to have a serious developer install it for a vastly overpriced amount, you can try to build and put the stairs in yourself. To do this, you will need to buy a spiral staircase kit--a kit that makes it easy to build and install the stairs. This is a modular kit, good for many sorts of houses and shapes.

If you want fast and easy assembly, and a staircase that doesn't take up too much space, go for the spiral variety. Because it is a spiral, and not a flat staircase, it will wind around a common center, taking up much less space than a normal staircase. This looks great in any house or building.

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Unfortunately, it will be a little bit more annoying to climb than a regular set of steps, because of its spiral nature. However, the tradeoff is well worth it, because in the end you can buy an easy to install by yourself set of stairs that you can install yourself.

You can find these kits online or at several hardware stores. Go check your local Lowes and Walmart, and look online for the types of stairs you are most interested in. I guarantee you'll find what you're looking for. You should definitely look for one that fits the color and design of your house, and also the shape and size.

Getting a Spiral Staircase

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Growing Grapes - A Beginner's Guide To Growing Grapes From Home

There is almost nothing as nice as growing something yourself and seeing your hard work and sweat turning into something that you can appreciate. Growing fruits and vegetables yourself is so healthy because you know what has gone into the product and what you are eating. Growing grapes has gotten to be something that many people enjoy. And more importantly they enjoy using those grapes for their homemade wine or some of the best jam you've ever tasted.

Growing grapes is something that used to take place on several of the farms across the country but for a while now was seldom seen. But much to my delight I'm seeing more and more yards with a beautiful trellis full of vines and grapes. Not only is growing grapes on your farm a good way to work outside but the taste is so much different than what you would get out of store bought grapes. And amazingly enough growing grapes aren't all that hard. You will just have to have the patience to get them growing good from the start so that you can enjoy them for years to come.

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As with any type of gardening, when growing grapes you have to have a good soil base for your grapes to get growing well. To have a good soil base you must fertilize. There are many ways that you can fertilize, from the store bought chemicals to the fertilizer that is found in every pasture that has cows, goats or horses in it. If you are one that prefers to use stuff that is bought from a store because you think it's in some way better, then you go right ahead. But I think that the fertilizers that have been here since ruminants were created are the best.

If you use fertilizer from a horse or a cow you will need to be sure that it has set for a little bit so that it doesn't kill the plants because of the fact that it's too "hot". But if you want to plant now and don't have time to let the fertilizer sit, use goat fertilizer. Manure from a goat is considered "cool" manure meaning that it won't overheat and kill your plants if not let sit. You can put a little bit around the base of the where you intend to plant the vine before hand and then some afterwards. By doing this, growing grapes will be an easier and far more fruitful task.

When growing grapes the plant will need approximately one inch of rain per week for that first year. If you experience a dry spell then of course you will need to water your plants. If you are worried about being able to keep the soil moist then you might consider using AquaRocks as they will work to hold in the moisture.

With these two items here being the main factors you have to worry about, you are well on your way to growing grapes that everyone will enjoy.

Growing Grapes - A Beginner's Guide To Growing Grapes From Home

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Grow Your Hair Faster With This Top 3 Easy Strategies

Nutrition affects the growth of your hair and if you intake the right food that has the right vitamins and minerals, you will be able to grow your hair faster. Deficiencies on nutrition could lead to hair thinning, brittle hair roots, split ends and balding. The condition of our body and our lifestyle plus stressful daily activities reflect on the growth of our hair.

If you are able to cope with hassle and bustle of daily life through regular exercise and nutritious diet, you will soon find out that you have shiny and healthy looking hair. Nutrients are needed to make them grow faster.

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So what do we do to grow hair faster anyway? Are there really effective techniques and strategies to keep hair strong and healthy? Let's start with the basics. Follow these three effective strategies:

• Take protein. Protein helps grow your hair faster. Protein makes up your hair, this is why taking the right amount of protein is needed to make you hair grow stronger and shinier. It is highly advised by hair experts to have the right kind of diet so that hair won't brittle or thin. Food that is rich in protein include yogurt, eggs, beans and soy. These foods are found to be good for stimulating and strengthening healthy hair growth.

• Get reliable hair growth products. Go all natural --- this is the best products that you must purchase. Also, choose products that have powerful essential oils in it that is rich with nutrients, vitamins and minerals --- these are the top nutrients needed by your hair. Try to avoid too harsh chemicals or products that kill natural extracts --- these products are usually made of cheap substitutes that can eventually harm your precious tresses.

• Have plenty of rest and sleep. Rest and sleep are one way to cut out and reduce stress and one of the secrets of achieving healthy, faster growing hair. Sleep will enable your hair to rejuvenate itself overnight. So, if you are under severe stress, take the time to relax. File a leave from work, have a vacation, go out with your friends or seek medication. Another one is if a person is having a medical condition and taking medications. This situation usually affects and gives a great impact to the growth of the hair. Things like drinking and smoking should also be avoided as they contain chemicals that makes our body intoxicated.

Hair loss is a problem faced by many people all over the world, both by men and women. With proper determination and following the steps above, you'll be able to enjoy a much stronger and thicker hair in no time. Of course, you can always visit a reliable specialist who can help you determine the real problems behind your hair loss and can even give you the proper prescription for it. For now, start by living and breathing a healthy lifestyle. You'll see a dramatic change soon.

Grow Your Hair Faster With This Top 3 Easy Strategies

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