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| comfortzone Adirondack chair is a chair in straight back and seat design set in slant to sit better on steep areas of the mountain. The chair has wide armrests which became it hallmark. The design of the chair was made by Thomas Lee in the early 1900s. Lee was in search for an outdoor chair for his summer home in Westport, New York in the heart of the Adirondack Mountain. Lee offered the design to his friend, Harry Bunnell who is a carpenter. Bunnell presented the design and get patent in 1905 and began to produce the chair for the next 20 years. The chair continue its popularity in most rural areas in America and many homeowners find it perfect for an outdoor setting. For more than a hundred years ago, Adirondack chair continuously provides outdoor comfort. The chair is perfect for outdoor areas like patio, pool deck and garden. The design of the Adirondack chair has been translated in to other forms of outdoor chairs. Todays Adirondack seats have contoured back and seat for ultimate comfort. Wood and plastic or resins are the materials used to build Adirondack chairs. Wooden chairs are made of several types of woods such as teak, cedar, oak and other kinds of hardwood. Plastic or resin Adirondack chairs are the latest trend in addition to the original wood pieces. The chairs made of plastic or resin material are available in different colors so you can choose the color of the chair that can match to the other decors in your outdoor area. You can easily purchase the chairs from the furniture shops in your area or from the online dealers. Otherwise, you can make your own chair as a summer project. There are free Adirondack seat plan that you can get from the internet. The chairs are available in different sizes. procrastinating There are Adirondack loveseats where you and loved can sit down for a nice and sweet conversation remembering the sweet moments of your first date. When you have outdoor chairs, you can conveniently spend time outside to relax. Your outdoor area will turned in to a lively and comfort zone where family can enjoy together doing some outdoor pastime activities when the weather is fine. Wood porch swings are one of the forms of furniture that are also perfect for your outdoor area. The gentle swaying movement of the swing can give a relaxing feeling.
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This is one of the most popular and favourite travel documentary TV series I've ever seen that has been broadcasted on Sky Television.The show has been broadcast around the world, and has broken numerous records on release, both in the UK and abroad.The first episode of 'An Idiot Abroad' aired last year, 23 September 2010. It is a very entertaining, humor and lots of cultural and society experience, created by and featuring Karl Pilkington, Ricky Gervaist and Stephen Merchant.
This documentary shows the reaction of Pilkington when visiting the Seven Wonders of the World. Pilkington visits The Great Wall of China, Chichen Itza in Mexico,Christ the Redeemer in Brazil,the Taj Mahal in India, Petra in Jordan, Macchu Picchu in Peru, and the Great Pyramids in Egypt. Pilkington has to travel for the purpose of the documentary together with an official podcast to accompany the programme while Merchant and Gervais stay in London and monitor his progress.
Pilkington has no interest in global travel. However, he has been placed to the location where he experienced the 'real' environment, culture, food and habits of the society in different parts of the world. This guy is a typical late England who never leaves his country and never likes to go out of his comfort zone, so naive, ignorance, always complaining all the time whatever seems weird and uncomfortable to him. It's quite interesting to know what and how he thinks and responds to new experiences.
The first series shows Pilkington visits the Great Wall of China. He complains about the workmanship and the unfinished work of the Great Wall ... there are so many cracks and perhaps the wall can be extended for the use of vehicles...it means more work need to be done!!
To him, the way people in China live is weird. . . They eat everything. . . caterpillars, worms, toads, scorpions, octopus, bats. . . You name it! ! He has been forced to taste the toads by a family in China where he can't say 'No! ' since they don't understand English! comfortzonebook! He said to Steven that the toad taste like chicken! !
He even mentions the orange color of chickens in China that makes him wondered and the most that makes him confused is when he entered the toilet and found out that the public toilets have no doors or a toilet paper... There's only a partition!!!
He also went to a Wushu Shaolin School, Deng Feng, where the original Kung Fu training coming from. He learns a bit of Kung Fu as well. He also met a Chinese fortuneteller that revealed his healthiness.
I really love this second episode which was on aired on the 30th September 2010 where Pilkington visits Taj Mahal in New Delhi procrastinating. There's a lot of humor and excitement in it! He's quite alarming with the hustle and bustle of the city. . . He gets to see many kind of animals like elephant, donkey, cow, etc sharing the same road with humans and other modes of transportation. As if there is no laws and regulation, the traffic is potentially heart stopper. It 's a madhouse! ! ! It 's quite a big surprised and confused to him to see the culture especially the real life of people in India and what made him worried is the place he's going to stay and the use of traditional toilet and no toilet paper! !
Kumbh Mela Festival in Haridwar is the largest spiritual festival in the world. Pilkington meet few Babas there. It's difficult for Pilkington to understand the spiritual practices at the Kumbh Mela Festival. He thought and expected to meet religious looking people with more 'proper'...He felt strange and stunned to see some of the Baba and their followers apply white powder on their face...and the most frightening is to see most of the Baba naked!!!
He did say that one of the Baba looks like Jim Morrison from his look and style...heavy smoker indeed!! He meets the elephant Baba who claimed and regarded himself as the incarnation of Lord Ganesh (Elephant God). He also swims at the Ganges River where it is considered holy and can cure any diseases. He also participates in Holy Day.
Karl Pilkington visits Cow Century where 'Cow Worshiping' is done. The Hindus consider cows as a religious animal. Most of the product that comes from cow are sold at Goshala Product Souvenir Shop such as Cow Dung's Cake (the cow's shit),Soap (made from cow dung juice), toothpaste (made from cow urine, cow dung and black pepper). This is something very 'new' to Karl Pilkington and the most disgusting things to him.
Karl Pilkington is so impressed with the design structure, the symmetrical angle of the Taj Mahal that looks the same from side to side. He feels peaceful while in Taj Mahal and says that is the reason for Princess Diana went to Taj Mahal before!!
There is an unpleasant atmosphere surrounding the place. . . he sees soldiers monitor everywhere with guns. He visits the Wailing Wall and puzzled by the behavior and the practices of the Jewish followers. He wondered why they kissing the wall, write something on paper and then put it in the wall where nobody will read it! ! He sees Jewish in black robe everywhere goal setting! !
Karl Pilkington visits Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus in the West Bank and swims at the Dead Sea. He also experiences an extreme kidnapping scenario test and feeling so stressful and annoyed riding a camel across the desert to Petra especially when the camel breakdown. He's staying a night in the camp in the middle of the desert before reaching Petra the next day and spends a night in a cave!
They set fireworks on the replicas that they have created like cow and frog that represent Judas. Karl Pilkington was so scared and had to run as fast as he could to save himself from fireworks.
In Mexico, wrestling is widely practiced and considered honour to the society. Karl Pilkington has participated in the wrestling until he was so exhausted and half dead!!!
He also visits the cemetery of the Mexican where he was so impressed to find out that the graves are beautifully designed, decorated and colorful... he never seen any cemetery like that before.
He also learns how to be a Charro, a Mexican Cowboy. He has been offered to drink tequila with worms in it until he got choking to get rid of the worm in his throat!
On the way to Chichen Itza, Karl Pilkington is still busy searching for jumping beans but never find one...He meets the ancestor of the Mayans who built Chichen Itza. Their village is so calm and quiet. Karl Pilkington says that the Chichen Itza is a little bit looks like the Pyramid in Egypt. But he is more attracted to the way the Mayans undergo a happy living.. the people looks happy with their life!!
The places are so crowded with people that make him so uncomfortable and stuffy.He has lunch at the deaf KFC where the workers are all deaf and experiencing the Nil River cruising before visiting The Great Pyramids the next day. While Pilkington is at the Great Pyramids, he found out that the place is so dirty with rubbish and bricks dumping everywhere... garbage in the air like tornado!!He said that the Pyramids are just like a man made mount!
He joins and dance together with the participants and at the same time observes and wanders about the costumes worn by the other groups so sexy, half naked. Karl Pilkington wanders the beaches of Rio de Janeiro and he doesn't understand why are they being sexy everything on show, naked without shame and without realizing that he is being at a nude beach where he needs to obey the rule, " NO DRESS IS ALLOW ON THE BEACH!!!'.
The statue of Christ of Redeemer is a magnificent symbol towers in Rio de Janeiro. It looks like Jesus with open arms blessing the city. But for Karl Pilkington, it looks like that Jesus is doing the buggy jumping!!
He has to go through the Amazon River and camping in jungle. The atmosphere to be in the jungle is very scary and uncomfortable. He found so many insects and snake.Karl Pilkington is worry too much when Ricky said to him that he will visits a little village that belongs to people that used to be cannibals.
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| In my office, on my desk, I have a plain white coffee cup that has written on it in simple black letters, Do one thing every day that scares youEleanor Roosevelt.
As I stare down the barrel of another year filled with hope, possibilities, challenges, and change, I think about what living the cups motto really means in practice.
Its all too easy to stay in the same routine year after year, doing the same things, thinking the same thoughts, eating the same foods, doing the same job and engaging in the same hobbies. Relatively nothing new learned or risked. No standing on the cliff looking over the edge and thinking, What am I going to do or What have I done or What the hell have I gotten myself into
The feeling of jumping out of your comfort zone so that a free-form anxiety grabs hold in the stomach and wont let go. A lump in the throat that sits sedated like a cat sleeping on a hot spot where the sun comes in through the window in an otherwise dark and cold room. Then again, there are comfort zones and there are comfort zones. Among the risks that I wont be taking this year are:
1. Climbing Mount Everest. First of all, its cold, really cold. Bone-chilling, long-underwear, ski-pants, parka-jacket, gloves-under-mittens cold. Secondly, there is the altitude, which, as I understand from hearing stories from people who actually are crazy enough to climb Everest, packs a real wallop to the head and stomach causing blinding headaches and constant nausea procrastinating.
If this were not enough, consider those ice caverns or cracks or whatever they are called that at least once a year (if not more often) some climber falls into, descending to the bottomless pit of frozen blue, never to be seen or heard from again. The other members of the climbing team dont even try to rescue the guy, but just place a bandana on a stick, plunk it into the ground in memoriam next to the site of their fallen comrade and place a cell phone call back home to the wife.
All this for the chance to freeze to death once you reach the top and are caught in a blinding snowstorm with sub-zero temperatures that descend in the wink of a clouds eye. No, thank you.
3. Wear a prairie skirt with Birkenstocks and white socks. If youre reaction to this is why not Go immediately to your television set and Tivo TLCs fun fashion makeover show What Not To Wear all will become abundantly clear.
These are the things I wont be doing to stretch beyond my comfort zone in 2009, but there are plenty of ways I plan to make scary (good scary) part of my everyday life in the coming year.
Of course, from this vantage point this is an easy plan to make, but in the hurly burly head-long rush into life, I may have a bad day or two and be tempted to say no, even when I ought to say yes, or yes when I should be saying no. No worries. Just in case, I have my coffee cup to remind me to break out of my comfort zone and do one thing every day that scares me.
- Say yes to something you have always wanted to do, but been afraid to try for fear of failure, rejection or embarrassment stop procrastinating. - Say no to a sure thing, where you have the security of knowing the outcome but no passion for its pursuit. - Say yes to a creative challenge, even if (at least for the moment) it does not carry a big financial reward. - Say no to something you really dont want to do, but are doing anyway out of guilt, fear or shame.
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| In the present article many criteria are investigated, such as the presence of furniture (operating table); locations of supply diffusers, using of partial walls, locations of extract ports, etc. According to those explorations and from a practical standpoint, the investigation introduces computational results that are capable to guide designers in their designing and monitoring stages.
The results of parametric cases were obtained for a 6 x 5 x 3 m operating theatre as shown in figure 1, with the aid of 3DHVAC program.A typical operating theatre configuration, such as that shown in figure 1, is proposed here as a base design case. The proposed case study follows the Health Technical Memorandum (HTM) developed by the National Health Service (NHS) standard of UK. The room dimensions are 6.0 m in length (L), 5.0 m in width (WD), and 3.0 m in height (H). The operating table has a length of 2.0 m and a width of 1.0 m (to support all table auxiliaries for all surgeries types), and 1.0 m height (an average between 0.7 m as a minimum and 1.2 m as recorded maximum). For the proposed design case study, ceiling square perforated supply air grilles were located at the center of the room with total dimensions 1.8 m x 1.8 m (9 modules of 0.6 m x 0.6 m with absolute filter banks), as shown in figure 1. The exhaust ports were located on the left and right opposite walls, figure 1. The return port dimensions were 0.4 m width and 2.0 m height. The lower port center point is located at 0.8 m from the floor. The upper exhaustport center-point is located at 2.0 m from the floor. Conditions in the proposed case study were set to be, a discharge velocity of 0.287 m/s, the velocity of the lower exhaust ports is 0.15 m/s, and the velocity of the upper exhaust ports is 0.29 m/s.In the cases, where either ofthe upper or the lower exhaust ports are eliminated , the extract velocities will corrected relative to the new area of extraction. The present work is devoted to investigate the effect of operating theatre-table presence and the supply partial walls on the air distribution within the surgical operating theatre. Therefore, in the present work, different cases were studied. The dimensions of the surgery staff was taken as (1.8 x 0.3 x 0.3 m), and these were located at the following X and Y coordinates, (1.85,2.5) m, (2.6,1.85) m, (3.4,1.85) m, (4.15,2.5) m, (3.4,3.15) m, and (2.6, 3.15) m.
Figure 1: Schematic layout of the proposed case study surgical operating theatre (elevation and plan views). (All extra objects are not presented in elevation for simplicity)
comfortzone The sterilization autoclave is the selected here as device to be simulated in the surgical operating theatres. A 3 kW total heat load was considered to be emitted from it. The heat flux was considered has uniform distribution along the height of the device. The autoclave is located at X and Y equals to (5. 0, 4. 5) m. On the other hand, the simulated room door has 2. 0 m in width and 2. 5 m in height. The door undercut is considered as a slot under the door with 0. 02 m in height and 2. 0 m in width.
The operating light pendent is fixed at the center point of the ceiling. In the parametric cases that model the light pendent, the lower surface of the pendent is located at 2.0-m height from the floor. The light pendent has a diameter of 1.0 m, and a thickness of 0.4 m. The larger copula of the light pendent is only simulated and the other one is omitted.
The airflow characteristics will be obtained for all simulated cases. The next sections will show comparisons among the studied cases, to represent the effect of the varied factors in these cases. Table 1 shows the details of these case studies. All case studies were performed at the same flow and thermal condition.
there are several factors affect the hygiene in the surgical operating theatres. The HVAC system plays an important to maintain the hygiene in the operating theatres. The parametric cases' results were discussed individually in details in the preceding sections, but in this section, an analytical comparative discussion will be carried out. But in former, it should state that to obtain and maintain the hygiene conditions, it should follow the ASHRAE, HTM, and WHO recommendations in the present comparative discussion.
The thermal conditions have a direct influence on the comfort level in any enclosure. The proper design of the supplied air-conditions, (supply velocity, direction, temperature, and relative humidity), is the basic guarantee to reach the optimum thermal comfort conditions. From all studied parametric cases, one can observe that all designs gave accepted thermal conditions in the operating level, except in the seventh case, which will discussed later in details. Also the partially perforated ceiling diffusers (case 11) introduced the most optimum thermal conditions not in the operating level only but also in the whole zone over the surgical operating table, but failed to create proper airflow distribution, figure 2.
All presented cases direct our choice to design a center plenum supply diffuser, which covers the most of the operating area. The center plenum supply diffuser can provide a fully downward airflow with acceptable gradient of the velocity, temperature, and relative humidity. In the presented partially perforated ceiling diffusers, case 11, the supplying system introduced the best thermal conditions with upward flow. Actually, the upward flow is completely refused in the operating theatre especially in the sterile zone (operating area). The upward flow in the operating zone is created from the horizontal inward air movement due to the partial impingement of the supply airflow with the operating table. The horizontal inward airflow goes toward the center of the operating table then goes upward, figure 2.
The horizontal inward flow, which is the source of the upward flow, catches the airborne contamination from the patient and goes up to fill the zone of surgery staff breathing. This will aid of transferring the airborne contamination from the pollutant area to the clean area, which consequently will aid to increase the infection probability.
The pollutant upward flow goes to complete its recirculation cycle in the upper levels over the operating table to return back toward the supplied fresh clean air, which will aid also to increase the infection probability.
The recirculation cycle that is created from the upward flow over the operating area and the downward fresh flow from supply diffuses contributes to increase the contaminant concentration level that will be stored in the operating theatre, especially in the sterile zone.
From preceding section, one can conclude the importance of using one plenum supply covers the operating area. As mentioned earlier, one can conclude also the effectiveness of the partial walls at the supply plenum to increase the efficiency of the downward airflow. Actually, also from previous discussion, it can conclude that the most optimum flow direction in the operating theatre and especially the operating area is the fully downward airflow. But according to the actual practice, the airflow should be horizontally in the vicinity of the operating table surface due to the impingement jet and the washing effect. So it recommended following the outward horizontal airflow over the operating table, not the inward horizontal airflow.
However, the supplied air criteria have a great contribution on the affecting the hygiene level in the operating theatre, the exhaust grilles have the complementary contribution. From figure 3, one can observe the effect of the upper level extract on the airflow distribution. Actually when the design follows the recommendation of near floor extracting, it doesn't reach the optimum fully downward airflow distribution. One can observe also the large recirculation area that was created in the region between the lower exhaust and the ceiling, when a near floor extracting was used only. This recirculation area can be a method for transferring the airborne contamination from the pollutant area (near the exhaust grille) to the clean area (near the supply area). Maybe the upper exhaust grille doesn't prevent the recirculation flow completely (depending to its position), but succeeded to decrease that flow. The decreasing of the recirculation flow can contribute to decrease the airborne contamination transferred to the supply area, and consequently contribute to decrease the infection probability.
As the effect of supply and exhaust conditions was discussed, it should discuss the effect of the furniture distribution on the airflow pattern. In the present work, the effect of the operating only is discussed. Actually, the operating table affects the airflow pattern and its effect was influenced by the airflow conditions. This affecting relation between the objects and the airflow pattern is so complicated and depends on several factors, i.e., the supply conditions of the supply plenum will affect on the airflow characteristics in the vicinity of the operating table and that feeds back on the airflow patterns again. According to the operating table orientation, the other objects and devices are arranged, also the operating table orientation contributes in the surgery staff distribution and its relative position to the supply plenum and exhaust grilles. The supply plenum that was simulated, in the present cases, has the same position and dimensions to create the same standard discharge velocity for the standard air changes per hour. So the supply air from the ceiling plenum covers the operating area for any table orientation, and for any staff distribution. Indeed, the other objects and devices influence on the airflow pattern is not included.
From the shown simulated case studies 4 and 6, it can be concluded that the operating table orientation has a slightly significant influence on the local air characteristics indicated significant influences on the global airflow characteristics.
The table orientation in case 6 allows the free space round the table to be more than one table length, thus resulting in the formation of an air curtain or shroud around the table thus leading to better air quality. On the other hand, in case 4 the airflow is directed towards the exhaust ports, without completely enveloping the operating area.
The complexity of HVAC systems in healthcare premises is increasing due to the additional functions. The HVAC system in this case is intended to provide the comfort and to remove any airborne contaminants that are produced in this application. These design criteria do not influence the HVAC system only, but may also require a special care in the architectural design and including the choice of the room furniture and its location.
The prediction of airflow distribution in vacant room can be readily accepted as preliminary guide to estimate the airflow patterns; but that is not sufficient in the healthcare applications. In these applications, there are many details that should be established to know the detail action of the flow in the activity zone. The following are the more important findings of the present investigation:
The presence of partial walls decreases the supply air flow effect, which was influenced by the air flow short circuit between the supply diffusers and upper exhaust ports.
Any exhaust port efficiency depends on the port capability to remove unclean air. When the port extract directly admitted fresh air, the port efficiency is lower . The partial walls in that case increase the upper exhaust ports' efficiency.
The near floor exhaust ports, in the presence of partial walls, are meant to extract the unclean air near the operating table and from the lower level of the activity zone. The upper ports are to remove the unclean air from the higher levels of the comfort zone.
Partial walls increase the supply clean air's penetration and the air velocity gradients in the vicinity of the operating area. This increases the persistence of the air curtain around the operating area. The removal of the partial partition walls from the supply inlet may cause extensive air movement in the vicinity of the inlet supply. It appears from the predicted contours in situations without partial walls that the flow strength was immediately dissipated downstream the supply diffusers.
Partial walls decrease the induction in the vicinity of operating table, however, the transverse induction over the operating table surface was found to slightly increase due to the partial walls.
Key factors should be considered to obtain ideal airflow pattern with the presence of the operating table in the center of the room. Those factors are furniture aspect ratio, room aspect ratio, and the sidewalls containing extract ports. It was found that the distance from the sidewall that contains the exhaust ports to the edge of the operating table should be greater than one third (1/3) of the distance between the two sidewalls. Following such recommendation resulted in better airflow distributions.
In the presence of an operating table, the airflow directions in the operating level (1 m to 1.5 m from the finished floor) tend to be horizontal (with small tendency for recirculation) and emerge away from the center of the table toward the edges. In the case of vacant rooms, the predictions show a complete downward flow in the operating level, which may mislead engineers seeking the optimum locations of medical equipment to keep the room in acceptable aseptic level.
From previous concluding results, the designers of HVAC systems should consider the importance of the air distribution; the positioning of operating furniture and the using of partial walls may be useful to maintain the air environment in the surgical operating theatres.
The partial walls were effective in directing of the airflow to get the most benefit of the supply air. The presence of the partial wall has a positive influence on the airflow distribution, it also has a great effect on eddies formation in the operating level over the operating table surface. The simulation of vacant room may be useful only in yielding general flow patterns, but that doesn't necessarily result in predicting accurate airflow turbulence in the vicinity of the operating level stop procrastinating. Meaningful predictions of the flow characteristics over the operating table surface enhance the knowledge of the flow action near operating area. The turbulence level over the operating area was affected by the presence of the table, the position of the supply outlet relative to the operating table, and the presence of the partial walls.
On the other hand, one can not ignore the effect of the surgery staff simulation. Also the heat distribution on the whole of the domain gave a misleading results, especially for the airflow pattern due to the presence of the buoyancy effect.
Finally, From the parametric results, it can conclude that the airflow distribution is an important factor can affect all another thermal conditions. In the present chapter, the airflow distribution is not evaluated in details. Indeed, there are several earlier trials to evaluate the overall ventilation effectiveness in the enclosures. The following chapter will consider the evaluation of the airflow ventilation effectiveness.
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Solid Oak furniture has been around for centuries, as have the solid oak beams in ancient buildings and churches, all a resounding testament to the longevity of solid oak. The real beauty of solid oak furniture is not only its durability and longevity over other wooden pieces of furniture, or even plastic imitations, but that it really will withstand the test of time. It gives a warm appearance, with a beautiful grain and if desired can be stained in other colours. The beauty of real solid oak furniture over a piece of furniture made from other solid woods is the very fact that it is solid oak, meaning that it is of the highest quality. The term 'solid oak' does mean just that. The furniture will have been crafted from solid planks of oak and then seasoned to make it extremely hard wearing and tough.
Some furniture makers will mix solid oak and ash. This is still a great piece of furniture and should be considered alongside the solid oak pieces. It will not usually offer you the same quality as solid oak furniture but certainly has its place. Some of the biggest contemporary furniture designers use this mix to achieve their designs and the overall look is still very impressive, as the woods are generally painstakingly matched to achieve the desired effect.
Of course, if you choose to buy a mix of solid oak with ash, or even consider buying a cheaper option of particle board with an oak veneer finish, these other options will need considerably more care over the years to maintain their looks. The same is true with glass. goal setting A glass option may seem a good idea at the time, but they are quite easily scratched on the surface and this can in time look rather shabby.
Not only is the long term resistance of the glass questionable, but it can take some real effort to maintain a high gloss, streak free finish when cleaning glass furniture and if you have little terrors, children that is, then little fingerprints can be easily seen. If you choose the veneer style furniture, it may look good for a while but will be easily damaged and on occasion the veneer has been known to come away from the wood underneath, giving a peeling effect. True solid oak furniture will need minimal care, a dust over say once weekly and will maintain its beauty throughout its life.
Another testament to the quality and durability of solid oak furniture is the fact that it has been the choice of many 'well to do' people over the years comfortzone. You only have to look around the stately homes and manors of England to see magnificent pieces of 17th Century solid oak furniture. Part of the appeal of solid oak is not only its lasting quality and hard wearing durability but also it fits in anywhere in the home, from baby's nursery to the kitchen and bathroom. Again, one of the reasons is its outstanding hard wearing capability for day to day use. If you are looking to invest in a quality piece of furniture that will last for a lifetime and even be passed on from generation to generation then solid oak furniture is the choice for you.
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