#The overhead door company New Orleans

[the-coda-project]

The Coda Project | 1.01 - Rough is the Road

It's been a long time since Dean saw his brother. Dropping in on him unannounced could really go either way.

Dean’s had a splitting headache ever since he got off the I-5.

It started somewhere behind his right eye, a pinpoint of pain that slowly spread outward like a fracture in a windshield, and it’s anyone’s guess whether it’s courtesy of the excruciatingly dry air of mid-fall in California, or just the constant tension that lives in his bones looking for a new outlet. Whatever the reason, the painkillers he tossed back almost an hour ago have done nothing to help. The stale, lukewarm bottle of water from the passenger side footwell wasn’t any more effective.

It’s edging in on 2am, and he’s been leaning against his parked car in the narrow loading area outside Sam’s building for hours, waiting for the pain to dissipate so that he can focus long enough to come up with the plan he really should’ve hashed out before he started the long drive from New Orleans.

In Dean’s defense, he hadn’t decided whether or not he was actually going to make this detour to Palo Alto at all until he crossed the Colorado River. He’d slowed to a stop under the beige arches of the California Agriculture Station, and sat staring at the Proud Caltech Mom bumper sticker on the Honda in front of him while he waited to be waved through, and decided that whether he could get Sam to help him or not, he shouldn’t pass up this rare opportunity to check in on him. Granted, that was about nine hours before he got here, so he really should have come up with a plan since then.

Still, distracted driving is a killer. Dean’s nothing if not a responsible car owner.

Now, he doesn’t know what he was thinking, coming here. He can’t do this. It’s Sam. By some miracle the kid got out, and Dean can’t be the one to drag him back in. Even for this. Even for Dad.

His head pounds and pounds and pounds, and his hands itch to yank the driver’s side door back open, to jam the key in the ignition and drive. But as much as he can’t bring himself to go knock on Sam’s door, he can’t seem to make himself leave either.

Because he can’t do this, but he has to do this. It’s Dad. Shit.

Make up your fucking mind, he thinks, and clenches his jaw. Presses his molars together hard enough that for a scant few seconds, the pressure in his skull eases, just a little.

If something’s happened to John—if he’s hurt, or worse—and Dean doesn’t try everything he can to help, he won’t be able to live with himself. Especially not with how things left off last time they spoke. He knows that as much as Sam butts heads with the guy, Sam wouldn’t forgive him for keeping him in the dark about it either. If nothing else, he has to give Sam the choice.

“Okay,” he mutters to himself, and digs his phone from his jeans pocket. He’s already tried John’s number at least a dozen times since he got the voicemail, but once more won’t hurt. And hell, maybe John will pick up this time. Maybe he’ll answer, and he’ll tell Dean he’s been laid up with the flu or outside of cell range or something, and Dean won’t need to derail his brother’s life after all.

So he dials the number, and it doesn’t even ring. Just a couple of seconds of silence and static, and then an almost robotic voice tells him the number you have dialed is out of service. Dean flips the phone shut and taps it against his chin a few times before yanking the car door open and tossing it inside.

The door’s hinges creak as he slams it shut again. He makes a mental note to dig the WD-40 out of the trunk when they get to Jericho. When he gets to Jericho. He can’t get ahead of himself. Sam’s just as likely to tell him to get lost on sight as he is to pack a bag and jump into the passenger seat.

Last time Dean checked in on him—a quiet afternoon almost six months ago now, and Sam hadn’t even seen him—he’d looked so casually and comfortably civilian that it’s entirely possible he’ll want Dean to deal with finding Dad on his own, even if he isn’t still upset about what happened the last time they actually spoke to each other.

Dean almost hopes for that. Almost. But deep down, he’s too scared. He doesn’t want to do this on his own. Even admitting that to himself makes him want to crawl into a hole and die, but what’s new, really. Dean wouldn’t be Dean if he regarded his own company as anything less than abject torture.

He’s halfway down the stairwell leading into the building when he stops in his tracks and looks back at the car. Maybe he should try to call one of John’s other phones again. One more time, just in case. At his side, his hand flexes, fingers stretching out and then making a fist. He exhales, slow and shaky. No. Enough.

Suck it up, he thinks, and glances up as a strong gust of wind rolls by, rattling the fire escape overhead. An idea blooms in his head slowly but surely.

If he breaks into the apartment, he won’t need to think of a way to break the ice. Sam will be pissed, and maybe if he’s angry, it’ll stop him from looking at Dean the way he did before he left, like Dean’s letting him down just by existing. Dean knows how to deal with an angry brother. He’s never quite got the hang of dealing with a disappointed one.

He’s pulling down the ladder before he’s even finished thinking about it.

Sam’s living room window clatters as he pulls it open. Inside, the floorboards creak underfoot. The apartment smells of oil paints and potted plants and chocolate chip cookies, and for a couple of seconds Dean thinks about sneaking back out the way he’d come before anyone can see him. Sam has a life here. Sam is free.

But then Sam launches at him through the dark like a six-and-a-half foot battering ram, and Dean knows immediately that whatever happens when the lights come on, he’s not going to be looking for John on his own. Sam might have quit hunting, but he’s still got that fire in him.

He’s coming to Jericho.

read again on ao3 | subscribe to series | about the series

[kmikaelsonimagines]

Road Trips: A Kol Mikaelson Headcanon

Request from Anon:Can you do do a imagine where Kol takes the reader on a roadtrip?

Hope this is okay for you lovely, and enjoy x 

Kol smiling as he picks you up, as he sees you running towards the car tugging a ridiculously large suitcase behind you.

“What did you bring with you, the world?”

“No, that’s for us to see, remember?” You leaning up, kissing his cheek and abandoning the suitcase. You running around to the passenger door, leaving Kol to put the suitcase in the trunk.

Kol holding your hand as he drives along the roads, windows open, music at full blast.

You laughing at his frustration with the built in GPS, the wonders of modern technology still evading him from time to time. Kol turning it into a joke, fake sneering at you and pretending to bite you for mocking him.

Such pretence causing him to pull over, kissing and other activities ensuing as you climb into the back seat.

The journey resuming, your legs on his lap as he drives further into the night, before stopping in a lay-by. Kol pulling out blankets from the trunk, laying them on the ground and patting beside him as he beckons you over.

You two lying in the middle of nowhere, your only company the stars overhead. Your head on his chest as he kisses your hair, pulling another blanket over the pair of you.

“What’s your favourite place you’ve ever been to? Klaus mentioned something about Belaga?”

“Oh, Belaga? That place was hideous.”

You laughing; music to his ears, a sound that compliments the twinkling of those stars, echoing off the roof of an infinite space, soaring into his heart, his soul.

“Seriously, though, where?”

Kol’s mind wandering, thinking of all the amazing cities he’s visited over the centuries. Cadiz, London, Paris, Madrid. New Orleans, naturally. But none of those are his favourite, none of them could ever be.

“Wherever I end up with you.”

You kissing Kol then, his hands in your hair, both of you in agreement. Wherever you end up, as long as you have each other, it’s bound to be perfect.

You falling asleep in his arms, the breeze lulling you to sleep. Waking up in the same position, a husky good morning falling from Kol’s lips, a gentle kiss before jumping back in the car, back to travelling the world. Together.

“Where do you want to go, Y/N?” Kol reaching a crossroads, no cars for miles, taking plenty of time to decide which direction to go. You pointing ahead, knowing that the only way is forward, whether it’s here, on the road, or in life, with the man you love by your side.

Finding an old motel, stopping for food, laughing as you steal one of Kol’s fries, him dabbing ketchup on your cheek. The woman who owns it scowls at you, waiting for you to hurry up and pay so she can chuck you out.

She doesn’t like troublemakers, which is clearly what you two are.

You running out of the motel, Kol throwing a signature cheeky smirk at the hostess. Him back in the driver’s seat, with only one intention.

To drive. To drive until you reach the edge the world.

“Ready to go?”

“I’m always ready when I’m with you. I love you, Kol.”

“I love you too, Y/N.”

Masterlist

[dizzydancingdreamer]

“First Lines” | Tag Game

Hey Y’all I have gotten tagged in this a few times— thank you so so much @auroracalisto @mikaelson-emma and, of course, @hellotvshowtrash— I haven’t had much time to read them and form coherant thoughts but expect some soon. 

So the rules are you post the opening lines to 20 of your most recent fics— or all the ones you have if you don’t have 20— and it kinda just shows who you are as a writer and it’s just fun!

I decided to include some WIP’s— and expose to everyone who is not @activist-af the sheer amount of fics that I start and then set aside. Please enjoy y’all I got a kick out of compiling this list!

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

“Barnes, you’re on protection detail.”

He must be dreaming— he must have fallen asleep with the tv on again. That’s been happening a lot lately; he’s trying to catch up on normal life. On all the shows and movies and music he’s missed throughout the years. He’s trying to catch up. Or maybe he’s just trying to drown out the silence. It doesn’t matter why, to be honest, all that matters is that he is asleep and what he is hearing and seeing are the workings of a bad dream. There was a marathon last night. Yeah, there was. Movies, a few of them. Something about bodyguards. He’s just dreaming about the movies. Right?

(WIP | Persephone’s Symphony | Bucky Barnes)

_

“Did you pack my dress!” A shrill voice assaults her eardrums as she scurries towards the door.

It comes from a tall, thin, young woman. Her face and fingers are boney, her blonde hair falling in perfect waves down her back. The faintest aroma of honeysuckles and violets wafts off her creamy skin. She is beautiful, her step sister Anna. At least in theory. The sneer on her cherry lips and the hatred in her cerulean eyes, unclouded and accusatory, can’t be hidden by any length of silky dress or ruby lipstick, though. She is ugly, even if just on the inside.

(Posted | The Servant and The Prince / Chapter One | Loki)

_

The ride to the capitol takes three gruelling days. Each night is spent at a different tavern. It is the same story each time; Estrid and Anna spend the night in a lavish bed and Y/n is left with the horses, curled under her thankfully baggy cloak. It is neither warm nor comfortable, sleeping on the bench seat of the carriage. She never really falls asleep, she only dozes in and out of consciousness. It is almost always interrupted by footsteps or the murmurs of animals or her own mostly empty stomach growling into the night. That one is twofold- usually her stomach is in so much nauseating pain that she cannot sleep but, on the off occasion she can, she is then awoken by the loud roars it makes.

(Posted | The Servant and The Prince / Chapter Two | Loki)

_

“Please Surtr.”

Her voice rings through his ears on a loop, the most beautiful and agonizing melody that he has surely ever heard. She must be magic- something strong and powerful and like nothing he has ever seen before. There is no other explanation. It had been magic when she appeared to him, literally falling into his lap as if out of thin air. He is the god of tricks but even he cannot do that- he cannot make women that smell like flower petals land in his arms at will. He wishes he could- more than anything he wishes he could pluck her out of his dreams and bring her back to him. But he cannot because that was not a trick. That was something else entirely.

(Posted | The Servant and The Prince / Chapter Three | Loki)

_

Y/n’s heart thunders as she gazes up at the glittering golden gates of the castle. If she was not so bogged down with bags she would throw a hand over her brow— a futile attempt to keep her eyes from burning out of their sockets. Do they really have to be this glittery? She thinks they are marvellous, that is not the problem. The problem is that she is not marvelous. Not in the slightest. Not worthy of such magnificent, splendid, rich architecture. She glances down at her simple dress— the loose green threads hanging from the side of the garment— she had meant to fix those— is this really where she must stay? Surely there must be a stable somewhere. A barn for animals like her.

(Posted | The Servant and The Prince / Chapter Four | Loki)

_

“On the balcony,” Frigga calls back, brushing her blonde hair over her shoulders. “We have company!” She adds, seemingly as an after thought— she is too busy pouring wine from a glass feeder into a beautifully ornate cup.

At least, Y/n thinks it is wine. She can smell the fermented berries— sweet and tangy and warming her nose as all wines she has encountered before have— only this wine is a pale violet shade. It is not an opaque rouge, not a barely there chartreuse. Nothing like what she has ever been able to get her hands on by way of bartering or shared celebration. Weddings and births. She takes a seat in one of the golden chairs, trying not to think about how out of her element she truly is. The little details are starting to show though. Not just extravagant pools and marble hallways. Even the food here is luxurious.

(WIP | The Servant and The Prince / Chapter Five | Loki)

_

She would have never thought it possible. Never. She’s the type to sit at home and crack open a good book. Maybe make a nice cup of tea. Lately she has been finding hibiscus tea to be a nice way to end the night. That’s besides the point, though. The point is that she is nothing like her older sister Jane. She is a dreamer, not a doer. Not a traveller.

Especially not a traveller of space— of foreign planets.

(WIP | Untitled | Loki)

_

“Are you heading home this weekend?” Lily twirls a strand of blonde hair between her fingers, “Mama told me there’s an event.”

Your best friend lays on your bed as opposed to her own, her legs dangling over the edge. Her eyes are closed, probably halfway to being asleep. It’s been this way since the two of you left for college three years ago, always more in your space than her own. You’re lucky that way, you have a best friend who would follow you across the country if you wanted her to. Honestly, you would do the same. Luckily, though, you decided on only two hours away away from home. Just far enough to find your footing. At least, that’s what you tell yourself.

(Posted | Everything, Everywhere | The Mikaelson Boys)

_

“Get away from me, Kai!” Y/n snarls, pushing her way through the grill with a huffing witch on her heels.

She had been eating her meal- staring at her meal more like— and trying to ignore the constant buzz of her phone. He was incessant, texting her non— stop as if it would make it all better. After the thirtieth text she had turned her phone off, preferring to look at her food in silence. No text can erase his voice in her head. She means nothing to me.

“Not going to happen, kitten,” Kai purrs, his hand wrapping around her arm and tugging her to his chest, “you’re not going to ignore me.”

(WIP | Untitled | Kai Parker)

_

New Orleans isn’t all that it was cracked up to be she muses to herself as she winds her way through the tombs. They tower over her, shadowing her with the sins of so many people before her. They’re lonely. That’s all she can think, over and over again. They must be so lonely. There can’t possibly be enough people to visit each of them. There aren’t even any people to visit her, let alone thousands of lost souls. She laughs to herself, a cruel sound breaking through the crashing silence. She is a lost soul.

(WIP | Do You Have A Moment? | Kol Mikaelson)

_

A little bit outside the city lines of New Orleans, tucked precariously off highway 109, there stands a roadside market. It isn’t too far, nor is it too close; it’s just right, like the porridge in some half assed, uninspired fairytale. It’s nestled perfectly on the edge of the bayou, drawing in just enough business to keep the two girls running it in business. The jam is sweet, the ham is honeyed, and the women have smiles that look a little bit like rain in a drought: necessary for life but too much water on dry soil is a recipe for disaster. It’s all a little bit too perfect. Too clean cut and wholesome. But this isn’t a fairytale, after all. It’s the story of the girl who got away with it and the girl who helped her do it.

(WIP | Hey Tommy | The Mikaelsons)

_

The Salvatore house has always smelled the same; like oranges and rum. A lot of rum. It is a welcome scent, one that smells almost like home. It will never truly be home, those scents are already reserved in your very essence, but it’s close. You’ll always be happy to walk through their door. Today is no different.

(WIP | Forever and Always | The Mikaelsons)

_

Kol drags a hand through his hair, his eyes locked on the book in front of him. His eyes wander the page, the corner of his mouth lifting when he skims something particularly interesting. You, too, have a book in your hands but, unlike him, your focus is elsewhere. To be exact, your focus is four feet away, basking in the sun on the lap of one shirtless vamp.

(WIP | Best Friend Things / Part Two | Kol Mikaelson)

_

“So, love,” a pair of arms snake around your waist, pulling you into a warm chest, “these are the famous pumpkins?”

A familiar blonde head, the one you woke up to this morning, settles against your shoulder. He must be leaning significantly given the fact that he’s at least a good head taller than you. You break the rain spell you had been working on, laying your wand next to your pumpkin starts. That’s the beauty of magic, you can grow in any season. You turn to face Klaus, a soft smile on your face.

(WIP | Pumpkin / Harry Potter Universe AU | Klaus Mikaelson)

_

The salt clings to her sticky skin, her hair grainy and matted from the surf. Thunder rolls overhead, chasing her through The Cut like. It’s only half past noon but shadows layer the street, casting everything in a dusky gloom. The pavement smells sharp; the rain is coming and fast. She hikes her tote higher on her shoulder and wishes for a moment that she hadn’t dove for as many shells today. She feels like a beached whale with all the dead weight. Business is business, though, and the tourists go crazy for a handmade necklace.

(WIP | Thunderstorm Afternoons | Jj Maybank and John B. Routledge)

_

She shoves her key into the lock of the Smith’s beach house, turning it with an audible click and smiling when she pushes the door open to the smell of warm pizza and oranges. Try as the boys may, Mrs. Smith’s affinity for essential oils will always prevail over the mass amount of cheap pizza they consume on what is— unfortunately— the daily. She hauls her bag higher on her shoulder, closing the door behind her and thanking the heavens she remembered to pack some of the chicken her mother made for dinner on her way out the door. No Domino's tonight, thank you very much.

(WIP | Sleepovers | The Kook Boys)

_

“Y/n, darling, come here,” her mother’s sweet voice trickled over her from the front hall, “I have some people I want you to meet.”

She stepped into the hallway, coloured lights pouring over her. It was Christmas time, her favourite time, and everything was extravagantly decorated. Garland lined the grand staircase, there was a tree in almost every room, and, her favourite, holly strung in every doorway. Her house radiated magic, more so than usual, that is.

(WIP | Hufflepuff Princess | Draco Malfoy)

_

Her feet hit the pavement with careful clicks, her heels— while undeniably killer— a little loud for her taste: a product of her day spent in practice with the other debutante girls. She has to force herself to make her steps light. This isn’t New York, it’s Mystic Falls. Being a southern woman is not a choice; it’s an obligation. A prior commitment she agreed to before she was old enough to truly fathom what it meant. For the most part she loves it— the elegance and refinery, the teatime giggles and flouncing skirts— but the heels? That’s a hard no.

(WIP | Untitled | Kai Parker)

_

She sighs, her toes burying themselves in the carpet as her arms reach well past her head in a much needed stretch. Her room is dark, the only light coming from her cheap desk lamp. The pounding in her head, for once, isn’t enough to drown out anything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours. None of this was supposed to happen, it wasn’t supposed to get this far. It was always just a game, wasn’t it? She runs a shaky hand through her hair, her knees wobbling slightly at the thought. Get it together, y/n.

(Posted | The Bet | Rafe Cameron)

_

Her bubblegum lip gloss attacks him from all the way across the café, cutting cleanly through the aroma of coffee and donuts and sending his heart racing at the obscenely sweet scent. He should hate it. No, scratch that, he shouldn’t think anything of it at all. It’s not in his nature to enjoy things- or to feel things at all, to be frank- but he can’t help it. The drugstore brand, wildly over-scented balm makes his head fuzzy like nothing else.

(Posted | Bubblegum Princess, Cherry Angel | Kai Parker)

_

I don’t really know who to tag because I haven’t been active these last few days so I am tagging people I have not seen do this yet and if you have just ignore me : @elijahs-wife @draconisxcaput @imaginearyparties @dumble-daddy 

[rami-hoe]

Home, Part One

Summary: Merriell returns home to his sweetheart

Pairing: Merriell Shelton X Reader

TW: mentions of war

Word Count: 1200

This turned out way longer than expected, so I had to split it into two parts

Most of the men had gone home just after V-J day. Lucky bastards got to spend Thanksgiving stuffing themselves silly at home, got to sit around the fire with their families on Christmas, got to ring in their New Year with their sweethearts. Not K Company, though. Oh no, they didn’t to sit cozy at home; they had to stay behind to clean up the mess in the pacific. For six fucking months. They didn’t so much as make it home for Valentine’s day, and you better believe Merriell Shelton was pissed about that. He fought and killed for his country just so they could keep him on those fucking islands. He just wanted to go home to Y/N, to see her, hold her, fall into bed with her. After four and a half years fighting Japs in this shithole, he thought he had earned that much.

Merriell had written Y/N on V-J day, and promised her that he would be home soon. He had written her again a week later to tell her that was a promise he couldn’t keep. Since then, nothing. He had told her everything that mattered before they went to Peleliu, and the constant updates to assure her that he was okay weren’t necessary since the fighting ended. At least, those were the excuses he used to justify it to himself, but they weren’t quite working for him anymore. The guilt was starting to eat at him. She deserved more than radio silence from him, but the longer he waited, the harder it got to put a pencil to paper. Instead of just getting it over with, Merriell elected to ignore the problem entirely. Not his best decision, but then again, decision making was never his strongest suit, especially when it came to relationships.

Merriell boarded the long train home with Sledge and Burgin just under six months since he had sent his last letter to Y/N. He spent most of the ride trying to come up with a way to explain himself to her when he returned, without much success. Part of him was hoping she would just forget he hadn’t sent her a single letter since August when she saw his face.

As the train pulled into the New Orleans station, Merriell found himself in a reflective mood. Saying goodbye to the friends he had made in the Marines was more difficult than he had expected. It was a strange thing; he had grown close to these men, men he likely would have never kept company with if he had just met them on the street. They were more than just friends; none of them would be alive without the others. Now they were parting ways, going back to the lives they had before. Or as close as they could manage after everything they had been through. Midnight was creeping up on them when the conductor announced the stop. Merriel stood and pulled his bag out of the overhead storage. When he turned back to his seat he saw that Sledge was sleeping. The young Marine looked peaceful. More peaceful than Merriell had seen him in a long time. He knew better than to wake him; they would all have more than enough restless nights ahead of them. He couldn’t steal a night of peace from Sledge, not for a goodbye. Without turning back, he made his way off the train and into the cool night. Despite the late hour, the platform was alive with the activity of homecomings and departures alike.

The walk to the French Quarter was quiet. Merriell was hoping it would give him the time to figure out what he was going to say, but he found himself unable to come up with anything remotely coherent. All he could think about was the look on her face when she opened the door. She would be asleep by now; his knocking would wake her up. He could picture her standing there in her chemise, her hazy eyes lighting up when she saw him. Maybe she would be too tired to remember that she was angry at him. A man could dream.

His heart leapt into his throat when his building came into view. It had been over five years since he had been here, but it was still home to him, as long as she was there. With a fluttering in his chest, he broke into a dead run down the street. His chest was heaving by the time he had gotten into the building, up the three flights of stairs, and reached the door. Apartment 306. Home. He raised his hand, tightening it into a fist, and knocked twice. After a few minutes without an answer, he knocked again, harder this time.

“It’s the middle of the goddamn night,” a tired voice complained from the other side of the door, and Merriell grinned; it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. “Who the hell is it?” Y/N yanked the door open, a glare on her face capable of deterring the most hardened of criminals, but the expression disappeared the second she saw Merriell standing there. He beamed at the sight of her, just as he had pictured. She still wore that satin nightgown with the lace on the neckline, the one he had bought for her on their third anniversary. “Merriell?” She reached out to him, her hand gripping his bicep tightly, as if checking to make sure he was solid.

“I told you I was comin’ back, baby,” Merriell said. He took a step towards her, but he was met with a sharp slap in the chest.

“And I told you to write, mister,” she snapped, her jaw clenching.

Merriell winced. “I know, I’m sorry.” That was as far as he had gotten in planning out what to say. “I just…” Just what? Just got so upset every time he thought about how long it had been since he had seen her, and how the military was making him stay even longer? Just felt like his heart was about to burst whenever he remembered he wouldn’t be able to hold her in his arms that night? Just found the very idea of writing to her, knowing they would only be getting words on paper for six months longer than they should unbearably painful? “I missed you so damn much,” he finally said, all efforts to give her an explanation forgotten. He wrapped his arm around her waist, drew her in, and captured her in a kiss. He breathed in the scent of her, and revelled in the feeling of her lips against his. They were just as soft as he remembered. He swept his tongue over her bottom lip, and she opened her mouth in response. His tongue slid into her mouth and found her own. God, he had missed the taste of her. He felt her hands moved to his neck to still his movements so she could pull back. She knew him well, and she knew they would be fucking out in this hall if she didn’t stop him.

“Let’s get you inside,” she said as she gripped his shirt and pulled him through the doorway. The moment he was through, he let his bag fall to the floor, and kicked the door shut.

“Come on,” he said. She giggled when he bent down and scooped her into his arms. “Let’s go to bed, baby.”

[duraservcorp20]

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Wheel restraints secure any vehicle to effectively maintain an accident-free loading dock.

Safety and Light Communication Systems

Warning lights and signs improve security and productivity at the loading dock.

Impact Barriers

Impact barriers protect personnel, goods, and equipment from accidentally rolling off the dock.

Protective Systems

Loading dock protective systems eliminate costly repairs at your loading dock.

Commercial Door Products

Rolling Steel Doors

Overhead Door and Wayne Dalton carry a full line of rolling steel doors including rolling steel fire doors, rolling grilles, insulated rolling steel fire doors, rolling steel service doors, and rolling sheet doors. Rolling steel doors provide long-lasting performance and are reliable solutions for self-storage facilities, warehouses, pharmacies, hospitals, offices, schools, and retail businesses.

Sectional Doors

DuraServ Corp carries Overhead Door and Wayne Dalton commercial sectional doors. Sectional doors include aluminum full view sectional doors, insulated sectional doors, steel sectional doors, and screen doors. Steel sectional doors are designed and engineered with high impact resistance, heavy-duty, industrial-strength, and built to enhance building aesthetics.

Knock Out Doors

Knock out doors, the most rugged option, are designed to prevent damage to door panels and tracks when impacted. Knock out doors are the best solution for damaged dock doors in busy loading docks.

High-Performance Doors

High-Performance doors optimize efficiency, improve production flow, operate quickly, raise the number of opening and closing cycles, and require less maintenance and repair cost.

Door Operators

Commercial door operators provide security and reliability for business facilities. LiftMaster door operators have a compact design, an emergency chain hoist with an electric interlock, and with adjustable friction clutch.

Aftermarket Products

Aftermarket products prevent energy loss and ensure dock personnel and equipment are protected from accidents.

Industrial Fans

Industrial fans are High-Volume, Low-Speed Fans that efficiently move air through an industrial space. HVLS fans are ideal in climate-controlled and non-conditioned areas.

Loading Dock Equipment and Commercial Doors Uses

Auto Dealers

Cold Storage

Distribution Centers

Energy Efficient Facilities

Food & Beverage Plants

High Security Areas

Industrial Operations

Manufacturing Facilities

Parking Garages

Pharmaceutical Facilities

Retail Businesses

Service Centers

Transportation & Transit

Warehousing Facilities

United States Most Trusted Loading Dock and Commercial Door Distributor and Installer

DuraServ Corp supplies loading dock equipment and commercial door products to Angier, Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Charlotte, Dallas, Farmville, Fort Myers, Fort Worth, Greater Hickory, Houston, Jacksonville, Jamesburg, Miami, New Orleans, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, Savannah, Shreveport, Sterling, South Windsor, Tampa, and Toronto. With skilled technicians, fully equipped service trucks, and an expansive loading dock equipment and door parts inventory, DuraServ Corp is a company you can depend on.

Whether you need a simple part or searching for efficiency and safety improvements to a current loading dock design, turn to DuraServ Corp!

Call DuraServ Corp today at 800-994-2361 or connect with us online to discover safe, smooth, and cost-effective loading dock equipment, commercial door products, and installation services.

[ohdsouthflorida]

What are the Advantages of Loading Dock Installation for Businesses in Miramar, Florida

The loading dock or material handling zone is a critical component for businesses in Miramar Florida’s productivity that includes shipping, receiving and staging areas. There are many factors that affect efficiency. They include loading dock equipment, loading dock leveler, loading dock seals, loading dock shelter, loading dock safety equipment, loading dock installation, loading dock repair, loading dock maintenance, trailer sizes and shapes, load configurations, and equipment systems used in the facility. It’s the place where product shipments interact with material handling vehicles and other equipment.

Loading docks in South Florida are busy places, and they can be hazardous environments, especially when they’re not designed, equipped and managed efficiently. Efficient and smooth-flowing material handling zones allow companies to avoid costly delays, prevent spoilage or damage to goods and meet tight schedules by revolving traffic quickly. An ideal loading dock that runs at peak efficiency is properly designed, equipped and maintained. Increasing loading dock efficiency and reducing logistics costs should be a top priority for a facility manager. With effective loading dock procedures and processes, there are significant productivity gains as well as energy savings and reduction in accidents involving equipment and employees. All this affects your bottom line. 

Businesses that deal with large orders on a daily basis should have a high-quality loading bay installed in order to safely and securely load and unload goods. Here at Overhead Door Company of South Florida, a Division of DuraServ Corp., we are the experts you want on your side when it comes to an investment as important as loading dock installation in Miramar Florida. So, here are the advantages of loading dock installation in businesses in Miramar, Florida. 

Safety 

As a general rule, every piece of equipment that is used in an industrial environment should be safe. After all, that is what maintenance and servicing are for! Here at Overhead Door Company of South Florida , our loading dock installation is designed with safety in mind in order to ensure that everybody working in a loading dock environment will come to no harm. With this said, machinery cannot account for human error, so it is imperative that staff are trained to the highest standard possible.

Simple

Despite the necessity for staff training, loading dock installation is surprisingly easy to use. In fact, it also comes with a low-maintenance guarantee, which means that workers will be able to get on with their job without having to consult a manual in order to fix a recurring problem. As a result, it is easy to train a member of staff to work safely in a loading dock, providing they follow the rules.

Large Loads

A well designed and expertly installed loading dock should be able to handle any load up to 10,000 pounds. After all, our team knows that many businesses deal with extremely heavy goods and it is important that the equipment can withstand such weights as it is loaded or unloaded in the loading dock area. The vigor of our loading dock design, installation and equipment mean that you can rest assured that your loading dock will not cave under the pressure and put workers at risk.

It is important that your loading bay is equipped with the machinery to deal with them in a safe and secure manner. In fact, every business is different which means that you should always consult a professional in order to ensure that you choose the right product for your needs. At the end of the day, you are going to need to secure your dock, and the Overhead Door Company of South Florida has everything to fit your loading dock needs. To find out more information about our loading dock design and installation and industrial doors get in contact with a member of the Overhead Door Company of South Florida team today!

[adambstingus]

Hotting up: how climate change could swallow Louisiana’s Tabasco island

With thousands of square miles of land already lost along the coast, Avery Island, home of the famed hot sauce, faces being marooned

Avery Island, a dome of salt fringed by marshes where Tabasco sauce has been made for the past 150 years, has been an outpost of stubborn consistency near the Louisiana coast. But the state is losing land to the seas at such a gallop that even its seemingly impregnable landmarks are now threatened.

The home of Tabasco, the now ubiquitous but uniquely branded condiment controlled by the same family since Edmund McIlhenny first stumbled across a pepper plant growing by a chicken coop on Avery Island, is under threat. An unimaginable plight just a few years ago, the advancing tides are menacing its perimeter.

“It does worry us, and we are working hard to minimise the land loss,” said Tony Simmons, the seventh consecutive McIlhenny family member to lead the company. “We want to protect the marsh because the marsh protects us.”

Simmons allows a silent pause as he mulls a situation where Tabasco is forced off the island. “We don’t think it will come to that, but we are working to do everything we can to make sure it won’t happen to us,” he said. “I mean, we could make Tabasco somewhere else. But this is more than a business: this is our home.”

A geologic oddity, Avery Island rises to 163ft above sea level, making it a towering giant amid the supine flatness of Louisiana’s coast. The 2,200-acre island – more accurately a hill of buried salt surrounded by bayou and marsh a couple of miles inland from Vermilion Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico – has long provided a sturdy home to Tabasco but now faces the danger of being marooned.

The Avery Island marshes are retreating by around 30ft a year as salt water seeps in, ushered in by canals dug by the oil and gas industry and the level of the land itself, which is gradually sinking by around a third of an inch a year. The salty brine kills off vegetation, loosens soils and accelerates erosion.

Fierce storms clatter into what’s left of the marsh, which is also being slowly drowned by a warming ocean that’s rising faster than almost anywhere else in the world. A further sea level increase of 2ft, almost certain given the warming that’s already occurred, will leave only the lofty core of Avery Island dry, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Avery Island, the home of Tabasco hot sauce. The surrounding marshes are being drowned by a warming ocean. Photograph: Eric Wolfinger/Photo courtesy of Tabasco

“The marsh stands between us and Vermilion Bay, and we don’t want to be right on the bay,” Simmons said. “We have to be very aggressive about dealing with the land loss. We almost can’t work fast enough.”

The threat posed to Tabasco is replicated along much of Louisiana’s coast, where a football field of land is lost every 100 minutes. Around 2,000 sq miles of land, roughly the size of Delaware, has vanished from the state since the 1930s due to a cocktail of maladies and self-inflicted wounds, stemming from the overdevelopment of the Mississippi river and an unquestioning embrace of extractive drilling, topped off by the wrenching global consequences of climate change.

The US has already been stripped of half of its wetlands since Europeans arrived and Louisiana, which accounts for a bulk of these losses, is on course to lose all of its wetland within two more centuries, according to the US Geological Survey.

A master plan set out by the state government last year forecast a further 2,250 sq miles of Louisiana could be lost over the next 50 years, forcing 27,000 buildings to be flood-proofed, elevated or bought out.

The plan sets out billions of dollars in work building protective seawalls, restoring marshland and increasing the amount of nourishing sediment carried to wetlands by the Mississippi, which hasn’t been left to meander naturally since New Orleans was established 300 years ago. Thousands of people still face being relocated, but while state authorities have acknowledged this fate they have yet to grapple with the vast cost and emotional whiplash it will entail.

“You go to Plaquemines parish and people will say they are already flood-proofed because they can pull their boat up to their door,” said Rudy Simoneaux, an engineer at the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. “It asks a lot of a shrimper or a crabber to relocate inland to Baton Rouge. They depend on the water. People are prepared to just rebuild and rebuild.”

The western half of Louisiana, where Avery Island sits, is particularly vulnerable as it is starved of the wetland-creating sediment dispersed by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers. There “aren’t many options” for the region under the master plan, Simoneaux conceded.

“The area doesn’t have the materials to build wetlands – it has been torn to pieces by canals and pipelines and it has no natural barriers, so hurricanes come pounding in unobstructed,” said Oliver Houck, an expert in land loss at Tulane University.

“It is a ripped-up rug. It would take decades to put it back together, even without sea level rise. Avery Island is going to become an actual island, there won’t be much left. The state has decided to put all its eggs into restoring the eastern part of the state. I hate to use the words ‘written off’, but those coastal communities are on their own.”

Aerial view of the ‘Great Wall’ of Louisiana, built after Hurricane Katrina to protect New Orleans. Photograph: Julie Dermansky for the Guardian

Unlike nearby residents who have resorted to rudimentary house elevations to stay above the foaming surf, the McIlhenny company has financial muscle to swing at its relentless foe. After Hurricane Rita turned much of the Tabasco production area into a pond in 2005, the company erected a 17ft earth levee, complete with pump system, to wrap the red brick factory in a protective hug.

It has thrown itself into the task of wetland restoration by planting hardy cord grasses, refilling canals and erecting weirs that halt the advance of salt water. Wildlife, such as black bears, alligators and snowy egrets, have a protected area to roam on the island.

Climate change has cast a shadow over several everyday staples, menacing the production of chocolate, the harvesting of hops for beer, the growing of coffee beans. Tabasco has no plans to join this list, with the company insisting the production of its peppers isn’t at risk and that its ancestral home can be safeguarded.

“We worry about anything that impacts our land,” said Simmons, a craggy, genial man who wears pressed trousers and slathers Tabasco sauce on virtually any food bar his morning cereal. Paintings of peppers are displayed alongside the wooden ducks that sprout from his shooting trophies. “That’s why we are working so hard on this.”

Pepper plants used to blanket the slopes of Avery Island until the 1960s, when the property switched to seed cultivation and shifted the bulk-growing and mashing of peppers to various South American countries. The pulped peppers return to Avery Island and are aged for three years in stacked oak barrels towering in a pungent, cobwebbed warehouse before salt and vinegar is added in huge vats.

Today, this company that was born shortly after the death of slavery pushes 750,000 bottles of product off its rattling production line each day, levered into cardboard boxes by mechanical arms and sent to more than 185 countries – the Japanese are particularly voracious consumers, dousing pizzas and spaghetti.

Throngs of tourists visit a museum and shop that plays off this heritage. Many of them come straight from the other attraction two hours’ drive to the east, New Orleans, which itself faces an existential crisis despite its huge investment in protective levees after Hurricane Katrina crunched into the city in 2005.

The pepper plant harvest. ‘Avery Island is going to become an actual island, there won’t be much left.’ Photograph: Eric Wolfinger/Photo courtesy of Tabasco

The problem is apparent from the air, with much of the wetland that would buffer New Orleans from another Katrina in a state of decay, rotting and curling up like chewed cloth, dotted by boats and trucks that were swept away by the huge storm and never salvaged.

“We’ve had 300 years of bad decisions,” said David Muth, director of Gulf restoration at the National Wildlife Federation. The lower reaches of the Mississippi have long been aggressively channeled via levees and other barriers, with this process accelerating in the 1930s after a major flood prompted Congress to authorise further intervention. Distributaries were severed and wetlands were drained or cut apart for farming, cypress logging and oil and gas drilling.

The result has been the choking off of sediment carried by the river to the marshes, causing the delta peat, grass and shrubs to dissolve away to open water in places.

Meanwhile, New Orleans drained swamps for housing developments that now sit below sea level behind levees.

“This area has been neglected for so long,” said Happy Johnson, head of a community sustainability group in the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood, worst damaged by the hurricane. He is concerned about lack of consultation locally.

“There is very little trust in the government because there isn’t consistent engagement with communities of colour. New Orleans is 60% black. How can you restore the wetlands and not have black and brown people involved? You can’t save a place with half the people.”

There are signs of hope, at least environmentally. Recent diversions of sediment have provided a jolt of growth to patches of the delta, a restoration that would be further bolstered by the master plan’s projects.

The branching wetlands, with white pelicans soaring overhead, remain an ecological wonder, persisting despite the scars of pipelines and the ongoing plight of its native communities, such as Isle de Jean Charles, that will be among the first climate change refugees in the US.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/hotting-up-how-climate-change-could-swallow-louisianas-tabasco-island/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/183975051282

[samanthasroberts]

Hotting up: how climate change could swallow Louisiana’s Tabasco island

With thousands of square miles of land already lost along the coast, Avery Island, home of the famed hot sauce, faces being marooned

Avery Island, a dome of salt fringed by marshes where Tabasco sauce has been made for the past 150 years, has been an outpost of stubborn consistency near the Louisiana coast. But the state is losing land to the seas at such a gallop that even its seemingly impregnable landmarks are now threatened.

The home of Tabasco, the now ubiquitous but uniquely branded condiment controlled by the same family since Edmund McIlhenny first stumbled across a pepper plant growing by a chicken coop on Avery Island, is under threat. An unimaginable plight just a few years ago, the advancing tides are menacing its perimeter.

“It does worry us, and we are working hard to minimise the land loss,” said Tony Simmons, the seventh consecutive McIlhenny family member to lead the company. “We want to protect the marsh because the marsh protects us.”

Simmons allows a silent pause as he mulls a situation where Tabasco is forced off the island. “We don’t think it will come to that, but we are working to do everything we can to make sure it won’t happen to us,” he said. “I mean, we could make Tabasco somewhere else. But this is more than a business: this is our home.”

A geologic oddity, Avery Island rises to 163ft above sea level, making it a towering giant amid the supine flatness of Louisiana’s coast. The 2,200-acre island – more accurately a hill of buried salt surrounded by bayou and marsh a couple of miles inland from Vermilion Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico – has long provided a sturdy home to Tabasco but now faces the danger of being marooned.

The Avery Island marshes are retreating by around 30ft a year as salt water seeps in, ushered in by canals dug by the oil and gas industry and the level of the land itself, which is gradually sinking by around a third of an inch a year. The salty brine kills off vegetation, loosens soils and accelerates erosion.

Fierce storms clatter into what’s left of the marsh, which is also being slowly drowned by a warming ocean that’s rising faster than almost anywhere else in the world. A further sea level increase of 2ft, almost certain given the warming that’s already occurred, will leave only the lofty core of Avery Island dry, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Avery Island, the home of Tabasco hot sauce. The surrounding marshes are being drowned by a warming ocean. Photograph: Eric Wolfinger/Photo courtesy of Tabasco

“The marsh stands between us and Vermilion Bay, and we don’t want to be right on the bay,” Simmons said. “We have to be very aggressive about dealing with the land loss. We almost can’t work fast enough.”

The threat posed to Tabasco is replicated along much of Louisiana’s coast, where a football field of land is lost every 100 minutes. Around 2,000 sq miles of land, roughly the size of Delaware, has vanished from the state since the 1930s due to a cocktail of maladies and self-inflicted wounds, stemming from the overdevelopment of the Mississippi river and an unquestioning embrace of extractive drilling, topped off by the wrenching global consequences of climate change.

The US has already been stripped of half of its wetlands since Europeans arrived and Louisiana, which accounts for a bulk of these losses, is on course to lose all of its wetland within two more centuries, according to the US Geological Survey.

A master plan set out by the state government last year forecast a further 2,250 sq miles of Louisiana could be lost over the next 50 years, forcing 27,000 buildings to be flood-proofed, elevated or bought out.

The plan sets out billions of dollars in work building protective seawalls, restoring marshland and increasing the amount of nourishing sediment carried to wetlands by the Mississippi, which hasn’t been left to meander naturally since New Orleans was established 300 years ago. Thousands of people still face being relocated, but while state authorities have acknowledged this fate they have yet to grapple with the vast cost and emotional whiplash it will entail.

“You go to Plaquemines parish and people will say they are already flood-proofed because they can pull their boat up to their door,” said Rudy Simoneaux, an engineer at the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. “It asks a lot of a shrimper or a crabber to relocate inland to Baton Rouge. They depend on the water. People are prepared to just rebuild and rebuild.”

The western half of Louisiana, where Avery Island sits, is particularly vulnerable as it is starved of the wetland-creating sediment dispersed by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers. There “aren’t many options” for the region under the master plan, Simoneaux conceded.

“The area doesn’t have the materials to build wetlands – it has been torn to pieces by canals and pipelines and it has no natural barriers, so hurricanes come pounding in unobstructed,” said Oliver Houck, an expert in land loss at Tulane University.

“It is a ripped-up rug. It would take decades to put it back together, even without sea level rise. Avery Island is going to become an actual island, there won’t be much left. The state has decided to put all its eggs into restoring the eastern part of the state. I hate to use the words ‘written off’, but those coastal communities are on their own.”

Aerial view of the ‘Great Wall’ of Louisiana, built after Hurricane Katrina to protect New Orleans. Photograph: Julie Dermansky for the Guardian

Unlike nearby residents who have resorted to rudimentary house elevations to stay above the foaming surf, the McIlhenny company has financial muscle to swing at its relentless foe. After Hurricane Rita turned much of the Tabasco production area into a pond in 2005, the company erected a 17ft earth levee, complete with pump system, to wrap the red brick factory in a protective hug.

It has thrown itself into the task of wetland restoration by planting hardy cord grasses, refilling canals and erecting weirs that halt the advance of salt water. Wildlife, such as black bears, alligators and snowy egrets, have a protected area to roam on the island.

Climate change has cast a shadow over several everyday staples, menacing the production of chocolate, the harvesting of hops for beer, the growing of coffee beans. Tabasco has no plans to join this list, with the company insisting the production of its peppers isn’t at risk and that its ancestral home can be safeguarded.

“We worry about anything that impacts our land,” said Simmons, a craggy, genial man who wears pressed trousers and slathers Tabasco sauce on virtually any food bar his morning cereal. Paintings of peppers are displayed alongside the wooden ducks that sprout from his shooting trophies. “That’s why we are working so hard on this.”

Pepper plants used to blanket the slopes of Avery Island until the 1960s, when the property switched to seed cultivation and shifted the bulk-growing and mashing of peppers to various South American countries. The pulped peppers return to Avery Island and are aged for three years in stacked oak barrels towering in a pungent, cobwebbed warehouse before salt and vinegar is added in huge vats.

Today, this company that was born shortly after the death of slavery pushes 750,000 bottles of product off its rattling production line each day, levered into cardboard boxes by mechanical arms and sent to more than 185 countries – the Japanese are particularly voracious consumers, dousing pizzas and spaghetti.

Throngs of tourists visit a museum and shop that plays off this heritage. Many of them come straight from the other attraction two hours’ drive to the east, New Orleans, which itself faces an existential crisis despite its huge investment in protective levees after Hurricane Katrina crunched into the city in 2005.

The pepper plant harvest. ‘Avery Island is going to become an actual island, there won’t be much left.’ Photograph: Eric Wolfinger/Photo courtesy of Tabasco

The problem is apparent from the air, with much of the wetland that would buffer New Orleans from another Katrina in a state of decay, rotting and curling up like chewed cloth, dotted by boats and trucks that were swept away by the huge storm and never salvaged.

“We’ve had 300 years of bad decisions,” said David Muth, director of Gulf restoration at the National Wildlife Federation. The lower reaches of the Mississippi have long been aggressively channeled via levees and other barriers, with this process accelerating in the 1930s after a major flood prompted Congress to authorise further intervention. Distributaries were severed and wetlands were drained or cut apart for farming, cypress logging and oil and gas drilling.

The result has been the choking off of sediment carried by the river to the marshes, causing the delta peat, grass and shrubs to dissolve away to open water in places.

Meanwhile, New Orleans drained swamps for housing developments that now sit below sea level behind levees.

“This area has been neglected for so long,” said Happy Johnson, head of a community sustainability group in the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood, worst damaged by the hurricane. He is concerned about lack of consultation locally.

“There is very little trust in the government because there isn’t consistent engagement with communities of colour. New Orleans is 60% black. How can you restore the wetlands and not have black and brown people involved? You can’t save a place with half the people.”

There are signs of hope, at least environmentally. Recent diversions of sediment have provided a jolt of growth to patches of the delta, a restoration that would be further bolstered by the master plan’s projects.

The branching wetlands, with white pelicans soaring overhead, remain an ecological wonder, persisting despite the scars of pipelines and the ongoing plight of its native communities, such as Isle de Jean Charles, that will be among the first climate change refugees in the US.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/hotting-up-how-climate-change-could-swallow-louisianas-tabasco-island/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/hotting-up-how-climate-change-could-swallow-louisianas-tabasco-island/

[allofbeercom]

Hotting up: how climate change could swallow Louisiana’s Tabasco island

With thousands of square miles of land already lost along the coast, Avery Island, home of the famed hot sauce, faces being marooned

Avery Island, a dome of salt fringed by marshes where Tabasco sauce has been made for the past 150 years, has been an outpost of stubborn consistency near the Louisiana coast. But the state is losing land to the seas at such a gallop that even its seemingly impregnable landmarks are now threatened.

The home of Tabasco, the now ubiquitous but uniquely branded condiment controlled by the same family since Edmund McIlhenny first stumbled across a pepper plant growing by a chicken coop on Avery Island, is under threat. An unimaginable plight just a few years ago, the advancing tides are menacing its perimeter.

“It does worry us, and we are working hard to minimise the land loss,” said Tony Simmons, the seventh consecutive McIlhenny family member to lead the company. “We want to protect the marsh because the marsh protects us.”

Simmons allows a silent pause as he mulls a situation where Tabasco is forced off the island. “We don’t think it will come to that, but we are working to do everything we can to make sure it won’t happen to us,” he said. “I mean, we could make Tabasco somewhere else. But this is more than a business: this is our home.”

A geologic oddity, Avery Island rises to 163ft above sea level, making it a towering giant amid the supine flatness of Louisiana’s coast. The 2,200-acre island – more accurately a hill of buried salt surrounded by bayou and marsh a couple of miles inland from Vermilion Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico – has long provided a sturdy home to Tabasco but now faces the danger of being marooned.

The Avery Island marshes are retreating by around 30ft a year as salt water seeps in, ushered in by canals dug by the oil and gas industry and the level of the land itself, which is gradually sinking by around a third of an inch a year. The salty brine kills off vegetation, loosens soils and accelerates erosion.

Fierce storms clatter into what’s left of the marsh, which is also being slowly drowned by a warming ocean that’s rising faster than almost anywhere else in the world. A further sea level increase of 2ft, almost certain given the warming that’s already occurred, will leave only the lofty core of Avery Island dry, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Avery Island, the home of Tabasco hot sauce. The surrounding marshes are being drowned by a warming ocean. Photograph: Eric Wolfinger/Photo courtesy of Tabasco

“The marsh stands between us and Vermilion Bay, and we don’t want to be right on the bay,” Simmons said. “We have to be very aggressive about dealing with the land loss. We almost can’t work fast enough.”

The threat posed to Tabasco is replicated along much of Louisiana’s coast, where a football field of land is lost every 100 minutes. Around 2,000 sq miles of land, roughly the size of Delaware, has vanished from the state since the 1930s due to a cocktail of maladies and self-inflicted wounds, stemming from the overdevelopment of the Mississippi river and an unquestioning embrace of extractive drilling, topped off by the wrenching global consequences of climate change.

The US has already been stripped of half of its wetlands since Europeans arrived and Louisiana, which accounts for a bulk of these losses, is on course to lose all of its wetland within two more centuries, according to the US Geological Survey.

A master plan set out by the state government last year forecast a further 2,250 sq miles of Louisiana could be lost over the next 50 years, forcing 27,000 buildings to be flood-proofed, elevated or bought out.

The plan sets out billions of dollars in work building protective seawalls, restoring marshland and increasing the amount of nourishing sediment carried to wetlands by the Mississippi, which hasn’t been left to meander naturally since New Orleans was established 300 years ago. Thousands of people still face being relocated, but while state authorities have acknowledged this fate they have yet to grapple with the vast cost and emotional whiplash it will entail.

“You go to Plaquemines parish and people will say they are already flood-proofed because they can pull their boat up to their door,” said Rudy Simoneaux, an engineer at the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. “It asks a lot of a shrimper or a crabber to relocate inland to Baton Rouge. They depend on the water. People are prepared to just rebuild and rebuild.”

The western half of Louisiana, where Avery Island sits, is particularly vulnerable as it is starved of the wetland-creating sediment dispersed by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers. There “aren’t many options” for the region under the master plan, Simoneaux conceded.

“The area doesn’t have the materials to build wetlands – it has been torn to pieces by canals and pipelines and it has no natural barriers, so hurricanes come pounding in unobstructed,” said Oliver Houck, an expert in land loss at Tulane University.

“It is a ripped-up rug. It would take decades to put it back together, even without sea level rise. Avery Island is going to become an actual island, there won’t be much left. The state has decided to put all its eggs into restoring the eastern part of the state. I hate to use the words ‘written off’, but those coastal communities are on their own.”

Aerial view of the ‘Great Wall’ of Louisiana, built after Hurricane Katrina to protect New Orleans. Photograph: Julie Dermansky for the Guardian

Unlike nearby residents who have resorted to rudimentary house elevations to stay above the foaming surf, the McIlhenny company has financial muscle to swing at its relentless foe. After Hurricane Rita turned much of the Tabasco production area into a pond in 2005, the company erected a 17ft earth levee, complete with pump system, to wrap the red brick factory in a protective hug.

It has thrown itself into the task of wetland restoration by planting hardy cord grasses, refilling canals and erecting weirs that halt the advance of salt water. Wildlife, such as black bears, alligators and snowy egrets, have a protected area to roam on the island.

Climate change has cast a shadow over several everyday staples, menacing the production of chocolate, the harvesting of hops for beer, the growing of coffee beans. Tabasco has no plans to join this list, with the company insisting the production of its peppers isn’t at risk and that its ancestral home can be safeguarded.

“We worry about anything that impacts our land,” said Simmons, a craggy, genial man who wears pressed trousers and slathers Tabasco sauce on virtually any food bar his morning cereal. Paintings of peppers are displayed alongside the wooden ducks that sprout from his shooting trophies. “That’s why we are working so hard on this.”

Pepper plants used to blanket the slopes of Avery Island until the 1960s, when the property switched to seed cultivation and shifted the bulk-growing and mashing of peppers to various South American countries. The pulped peppers return to Avery Island and are aged for three years in stacked oak barrels towering in a pungent, cobwebbed warehouse before salt and vinegar is added in huge vats.

Today, this company that was born shortly after the death of slavery pushes 750,000 bottles of product off its rattling production line each day, levered into cardboard boxes by mechanical arms and sent to more than 185 countries – the Japanese are particularly voracious consumers, dousing pizzas and spaghetti.

Throngs of tourists visit a museum and shop that plays off this heritage. Many of them come straight from the other attraction two hours’ drive to the east, New Orleans, which itself faces an existential crisis despite its huge investment in protective levees after Hurricane Katrina crunched into the city in 2005.

The pepper plant harvest. ‘Avery Island is going to become an actual island, there won’t be much left.’ Photograph: Eric Wolfinger/Photo courtesy of Tabasco

The problem is apparent from the air, with much of the wetland that would buffer New Orleans from another Katrina in a state of decay, rotting and curling up like chewed cloth, dotted by boats and trucks that were swept away by the huge storm and never salvaged.

“We’ve had 300 years of bad decisions,” said David Muth, director of Gulf restoration at the National Wildlife Federation. The lower reaches of the Mississippi have long been aggressively channeled via levees and other barriers, with this process accelerating in the 1930s after a major flood prompted Congress to authorise further intervention. Distributaries were severed and wetlands were drained or cut apart for farming, cypress logging and oil and gas drilling.

The result has been the choking off of sediment carried by the river to the marshes, causing the delta peat, grass and shrubs to dissolve away to open water in places.

Meanwhile, New Orleans drained swamps for housing developments that now sit below sea level behind levees.

“This area has been neglected for so long,” said Happy Johnson, head of a community sustainability group in the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood, worst damaged by the hurricane. He is concerned about lack of consultation locally.

“There is very little trust in the government because there isn’t consistent engagement with communities of colour. New Orleans is 60% black. How can you restore the wetlands and not have black and brown people involved? You can’t save a place with half the people.”

There are signs of hope, at least environmentally. Recent diversions of sediment have provided a jolt of growth to patches of the delta, a restoration that would be further bolstered by the master plan’s projects.

The branching wetlands, with white pelicans soaring overhead, remain an ecological wonder, persisting despite the scars of pipelines and the ongoing plight of its native communities, such as Isle de Jean Charles, that will be among the first climate change refugees in the US.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/hotting-up-how-climate-change-could-swallow-louisianas-tabasco-island/

[gsgaragedoors]

Garage Door on the Fritz? Garage Door Repair Can Get Your Garage Back in Tip-Top Shape ASAP!

If your garage is malfunctioning or damaged in anyway, don't just put up with it. Get garage door repair services and get your door back to working properly again fast!

Does the doorway to your garage shake, shimmy, and rattle when it opens and closes? Will the door not open at all? Or is it stuck in a continual cycle of opening and closing? When your garage opening isn't working right, it can add major stress and frustration to your life. However, the good news is that garage door repair service is fast, affordable, and effective. From garage door opener repair to track, spring, and panel fixes, your local overhead door company can help get your garage working its best again fast.

Before you call the garage door contractors, be sure to check these quick-fixes first:

Make certain your automatic opener has working batteries.

Inspect all safety sensors to make certain they are free of debris.

Remove debris like sticks and gravel from under the door.

If these basic steps don't get your garage opening and closing smoothly again, then you know it's time to call in the professionals. Overhead door companies have the training and tools to diagnose a wide variety of garage door repair issues from minor problems to major safety concerns. Once they know what's wrong with your door, they'll be able to provide you with the spring repair or panel replacement you need. And better yet, your garage contractors can make certain the job is done completely and correctly for safe, reliable repairs that will last long term.

So whether you're in need of garage door opener repair or want to find out about replacing the door panel dented by your teenage driver, your area overhead door company is here to help. Remember, your garage plays a vital role in your home's security and energy efficiency, as well as aesthetics, so don't wait to get it fixed.

Helping restore convenience to your daily routine, safety to your home, and more, professional garage door repair service can ensure your garage is returned to working order ASAP.

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[samuelmmarcus]

Dark Modern Farmhouse

  If you’re looking for neutral interiors I recommend you to take a look at this post, but if you’re here to see a new-construction modern farmhouse with black exteriors, then you’re in the right place!

Recently built by Mike Stevens Homes (previously featured here & here – you need to see these house tours!), this dark modern farmhouse has so many great ideas that I’m sure will leave you feeling inspired, or at least, knowing what black paint color you should be using on your exterior!

Here, the builder share more details:

  “This was actually the second house we built for this customer and was one of our favorite projects we’ve worked on in recent years. This is one of those rare clients that came to us with tons of great ideas and a very clear picture of what they wanted. Their previous house was a fairly traditional home with some unique New Orleans flair.

With this new home, they had an inspiration to go with darker colors with copper accents and unique architectural salvage pieces from Ricca Architectural Sales in New Orleans. They found a stock house plan and decided to modify the plan to meet their needs while transforming the exterior to match some inspiration photos they had found.

The interior had tons of great unique ideas and pieces. One of our favorites was the tile in the secondary bathroom. Other unique features were the tile surround around the kitchen island, and the jaw dropping Tecnogas Superiore range and vent hood. The kitchen layout, floating shelving, and tile backsplash really made an amazing statement right when you walk in the front door.”

  Dark Modern Farmhouse

What a curb-appeal! I think this exterior will inspire many of you that are planning on building a new home. Even if you are not a big fan of black siding, the architectural details here are really inspiring. The exterior paint color is“Sherwin Williams Iron Ore”.

Windows: Pella Black Casement.

Roof: Certainteed Driftwood.

Metal Roof: Copper Penny.

Brick

The exterior of this home combines black board and batten siding and neutral brick.

Brick: General Shale Logan Canyon (queen) cream mortar.

Cedar Columns: Builders First Source- custom stain.

Front Door: Antique oak door from New Orleans with antique leaded glass – custom stain.

Garage Doors

Garage Doors: Overhead Door Company- courtyard series painted Sherwin Williams Iron Ore.

Gutters: 5 Inch Copper Metallic.

Copper Lighting

The copper exterior lighting are from Rejuvenation.

Kitchen

The same exterior paint color is brought to the interiors and it’s complemented by brass accents and beautiful hardwood flooring. The kitchen is the center of the house, bringing these elements to evidence.

Fridge and Freezer: Thermador 24inch columns with custom cabinet fronts from Dixie Kitchen.

Kitchen Flooring

Kitchen Floor Tile: Penny Round- Cotton. Edged in brass schluter. I am seeing this idea quite often lately. Will this be the new kitchen trend? What do you think?

Kitchen Lighting

Kitchen Island pendants: Joss and Main in antique brass.

Countertop

Kitchen countertops are Calacatta Vicenza Quartz – beautiful and durable!

Backsplash

Kitchen Backsplash: Floor and Decor 2×2 Ocean Marble – similar here – Others: here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Cabinet Hardware: 18 inch solid antique brass – similar here, here & here.

Sconces: Joss and Main.

Range & Hood

Range and Hood: Tecnogas Superiore Deco.

Pot Filler: Kingston Brass Antique Brass.

Kitchen Cabinet

Kitchen cabinets are Wellborn Forest in custom color, similar to “Sherwin Williams Anew Gray”.

Kitchen Shelf Brackets: Signature Hardware antique brass.

Faucet

Kitchen Faucet: Kingston Brass Antique Brass.

Dramatic Choices

Ideas to Decorate Dark Interiors:

(Scroll to see more)

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Interior Paint Color

Main Living Walls: “Sherwin Williams SW 7069 Iron Ore”.

Crown and Ceiling: “Sherwin Williams Aesthetic White”.

Hardwood Flooring: Unfinished white oak with custom aging oil – Other Beautiful Flooring: here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Lighting: Pottery Barn.

Great Room

It takes some courage and a lot of personality to have a home with dark interiors, but if well-balanced with light furnishings and warm accents, it can look quite beautiful!

French Doors: Custom made Riccas New Orleans. Custom stain. Hardware is antique brass.

Fireplace

Fireplace: Heat & Glo- 36 inch Radiant heat Wood Burning. Surround is Limestone.

Pantry

 How great is this pantry? I am loving the dark cabinets with the Calacatta Vicenza Quartz countertop.

Pantry Cabinet: Tidwell Sussex II.

Lighting: Pottery Barn.

Powder Room

The powder room features the same dark paint color, “Iron Ore by Sherwin Williams”.

Countertop: Calacatta Vicenza Quartz.

Chandelier: Antique – Other Beautiful Lighting: here, here, here & here.

Faucet: here – similar – Other Recommended Bathroom Faucets: here, here, here, here & here.

Plaid Bathroom

The “plaid” tile look was achieved by choosing 3 colors of ordinary tile and laying them to look like a plaid shirt. It was a great cost effective way to really make an ordinary shower stand out.

Plaid Bath Wall Tile: 6×6 white matte, black matte and light smoke used to create buffalo check pattern. Framed with graphite schluter.

Floor Tile: Penny Round- Cotton.

Master Bathroom

Master Bath Vanity: Wellborn Forest in Caviar – Others: here, here, here, here & here.

Sconces: Joss and Main – Other Unique Sconces: here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Beautiful Mirrors: here, here, here, here & here.

Cabinet Pulls: Restoration Hardware.

Countertop: Calacatta Vicenza Quartz.

Faucets: here – similar.

Shower Tile

Tiling: Statuarietto Wall Tile, Shower Floor Tile & Accent Tile.

Shower System: Kingston Brass.

Brass

Tiles are framed with antique brass schluter.

Outdoors

The back porch features a brick fireplace in General Shale Logan Canyon brick, Cedar T&G ceiling and wood-looking porcelain tiles.

Great Wood Porcelain Tiles: here, here, here, here & here.

  Many thanks to the builder for sharing the details above!

Builder: Mike Stevens Homes (Instagram – Facebook)

Photography: @_chrissmithphotography_ .

  Click on items to shop:

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Best Sales of the Month:

Thank you for shopping through Home Bunch. I would be happy to assist you if you have any questions or are looking for something in particular. Feel free to contact me and always make sure to check dimensions before ordering. Happy shopping!

  Serena & Lily: Enjoy 20% OFF Everything with Code: GUESTPREP

  Wayfair: Up to 75% OFF on Furniture and Decor!!!

  Joss & Main: Up to 70% off Sale!

  Pottery Barn: Bedroom Event Slale plus free shipping. Use code: FREESHIP.

  One Kings Lane: Buy More Save More Sale.

  West Elm: 20% Off your entire purchase + free shipping. Use code: FRIENDS

  Anthropologie: 20% off on Everything + Free Shipping!

  Nordstrom: Sale – Incredible Prices!!!

  Posts of the Week:

Beautiful Homes of Instagram: Wine Country.

2019 New Year Home Tour.

Black & White Modern Farmhouse.

Neutral Home.

Southern-inspired Modern Farmhouse.

Coastal Farmhouse Home Decor.

Interior Design Ideas: Home Renovation.

Beautiful Homes of Instagram: Modern Farmhouse.

Beautiful Homes of Instagram: Charlotte, NC.

New-Construction Home Ideas.

Small Lot Modern Farmhouse.

Florida Beach Cottage.

Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen’s Home – Full House Tour.

Dark Cedar Shaker Exterior.

Beautiful Homes of Instagram: Coastal Farmhouse Design.

Florida Beach House Interior Design.

Beautiful Homes of Instagram: Fixer Upper.

Tailored Interiors.Grey Kitchen Paint Colors.

Follow me on Instagram: @HomeBunch

You can follow my pins here: Pinterest/HomeBunch

See more Inspiring Interior Design Ideas in my Archives.

“Dear God,

If I am wrong, right me. If I am lost, guide me. If I start to give-up, keep me going.

Lead me in Light and Love”.

Have a wonderful day, my friends and we’ll talk again tomorrow.”

with Love,

Luciane from HomeBunch.com

“For your shopping convenience, this post might contain links to retailers where you can purchase the products (or similar) featured. I make a small commission if you use these links to make your purchase so thank you for your support!”

from Home https://www.homebunch.com/dark-modern-farmhouse/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[mikemortgage]

McDonald’s workers across US protest against sex harassment

NEW ORLEANS — McDonald’s workers staged protests in several cities Tuesday in what organizers billed as the first multistate strike seeking to combat sexual harassment in the workplace.

In Chicago, one of the targeted cities, several dozen protesters rallied in front of McDonald’s headquarters while a plane flew overhead with a banner reading, “McDonald’s: Stop Sexual Harassment.” In New Orleans, current and former employees chanted, “Hey, McDonald’s, you can’t hide — we can see your nasty side.”

Other protests were held in San Francisco; Los Angeles; St. Louis; Kansas City, Missouri, and Durham, North Carolina. The targeted restaurants kept serving food, with organizers saying the goal was not to shut them down.

Protesters demanded that McDonald’s require anti-harassment training for managers and employees. They also want a national committee formed to address sexual harassment, made up of workers, managers and leaders of national women’s groups.

McDonald’s declined to comment on the protests, saying it stood by a statement issued last week defending its anti-harassment policies. The company also disclosed last week that it will turn to outside experts to help “evolve” those policies, including consultants from Seyfarth Shaw at Work, an employment law training firm.

Protest organizers called on McDonald’s to drop Seyfarth Shaw, depicting it as an “anti-worker law firm.” They noted that it has defended the Weinstein Co. in a lawsuit over sexual harassment allegations against former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

At the New Orleans protest, McDonald’s employees arrived at a restaurant with red tape over their mouths emblazoned with the #MeToo phrase. They pulled off the tape to chant their slogans.

Tanya Harrell, 22, fought back tears as she explained that workers wanted a more effective system for handling harassment complaints. She said managers had laughed off her complaint that a male co-worker had groped her, telling her she probably had given him “sex appeal.”

She said she left McDonald’s for a while in 2017 and is now working at a different store.

Harrell was among several protest organizers who filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in May, alleging pervasive harassment at some of McDonald’s franchise restaurants.

In San Francisco, more than 50 workers and activists protested outside a McDonald’s in the Mission District. Among them was Achon Hightower, a Burger King employee who came from Sacramento to show support for fellow fast-food workers.

“There’s a lot of sexual harassment going on behind closed doors,” he said. “Things like this are kind of hidden and swept underneath the rug. They really don’t do anything about it.”

——

Associated Press writers Terry Chea in San Francisco and David Crary in New York contributed to this report.

from Financial Post https://ift.tt/2DiBEyC via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[blackpjensen]

Sealing And Dealing: Restoring Pavers With SEK-Surebond

Maintaining hardscapes has become a valuable add-on service for many landscape design/build companies as of late. While many surfaces installed these days, whether natural stone or concrete, can last years, if not decades, wear and tear can show through over time.

Jim Scocozza, owner of Pennsylvania-based The Paver Savers Inc., said he’s started using a sealer on his projects.

“We’ve worked with new installations and hardscapes that have considerable age. For new installs, we can protect the beauty of the surface. We can also restore older hardscapes to bring them back to life,” he says about using a sealer. “Either way, there is a real ‘wow factor’ when we are done.”

SEK-Surebond, a 25-year-old company that offers hardscape installation products, acquired Surebond in 2010. This 30-year-old company manufactures sealers, cleaners and adhesive products for hardscapes, as well as joint stabilizing sealers and a line of sealers, cleaners and stain-blocking products in various finishes.

Since leading sealer vendors will provide training on the application of such products, savvy contractors can pick up this add-on service to offer customers and extend the life of new installations, but also expand opportunities in restoring older projects.

“Generally speaking, homeowners are not aware of the need to clean and seal,” Scocozza says. “Contractors can also be hesitant to offer the services because they lack experience, training and knowledge.”

Before and after. Photo: SEK-Surebond

Scocozza acknowledges the learning curve involved. Some common difficulties associated with sealers include over-application of the sealer or applying it in poor weather. Moisture, for example, can become trapped under or within the sealant and can cause discoloration.

“If the installer is not completely familiar with sealing, they could get into trouble very quickly,” Scocozza says.

However, his experience with Surebond has shown they’re supportive of doing the job right.

“The initial training is only one part that results in successful application,” he says. “The company just doesn’t sell you a product and then say ‘goodbye and good luck.’”

Sealers can prevent the growth of weeds and grass in joints, protect pavers and natural stone against stains from grease, grime and oil, inhibit insect infestations and reduce accumulation of mildew and mold, according to information from Surebond.

The lack of awareness by homeowners that this type of service exists, coupled with contractor’s general wariness of sealers, has left it a largely untapped market, Scocozza says.

Sean Hillis of Premier Paver Restoration in New Orleans also says there seems to be few contractors involved in the cleaning and sealing segment, which means a business opportunity awaits.

“Those contractors that were doing paver restoration were very busy,” he says.

The climate and harsh salt air wreak havoc on hardscapes in New Orleans and along the gulf coast of Louisiana, Hillis says.

“Some projects were 15 years old but looked like they were 100,” he says.

When Hillis initially started Premier Paver Restoration, he literally knocked on doors and shared before-and-after photos of recent jobs.

“The results were so good, the neighbors wanted their yards done, too. That led to more word-of-mouth, which led to more jobs,” he says.

While his business was successful, Hillis admits he was initially a bit overwhelmed.

“I went into business, but I needed to learn more,” says Hillis, who began as a paving installer. “So, I surrounded myself with the professionals in the field that could show me what I needed to do in order to grow.” This included taking a class on cleaning and sealing at SEK-Surebond.

Larry Jouett, owner of Odd Job Larry in Kenosha, Wisconsin, arrived at the same conclusion as Hillis after conducting a detailed analysis of the financial potential in paver restoration.

“We crunched the numbers and it looked very promising,” he says. “We determined our overhead and profit margins, the startup costs and what we needed to accomplish. All of that looked quite attractive, so we developed a business and marketing plan and started a new business.”

The post Sealing And Dealing: Restoring Pavers With SEK-Surebond appeared first on Turf.

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[duraservcorp20]

Commercial Rolling Up Doors, Sectional Doors, High-Speed Doors, and Installation Services in the United States

Commercial doors, as the name implies, are doors specifically manufactured for commercial purposes. When selecting a commercial door, it's imperative to choose a door offering proven functionality, performance, and longevity. DuraServ Corp is here to assist you in determining the right commercial door for your business needs.

DuraServ Corp offers a variety of commercial rolling steel doors, door operators, DuraFlex doors, high-performance doors, knock out doors, and sectional doors. We carry Albany, Chase Traffic Doors, Clopay, Cornell, DuraFlex, Dynaco, Hercules Doors, Hormann-Flexon, LiftMaster, Overhead Door, PFlow, Rytec, TKO Dock Doors, and Wayne Dalton.

Connect with DuraServ Corp online or call our sales team today at 800-994-2361 to learn how we can help you!

Commercial or Industrial Doors

High-Performance doors optimize efficiency, improve production flow, operate quickly, raise the number of opening and closing cycles, and require less maintenance and repair cost.

Albany doors enhance the flow and convenience of your business by creating entrance solutions for the front, back, and interior of your building.

Chase traffic doors are a cost-effective solution for fast and efficient, two-way movement through an opening where visual, sound and environmental barriers are required.

Dynaco high-performance doors are safe, reliable, maintenance-friendly, and comply with European standards. Dynaco doors save energy, reduce operational costs, streamline traffic flow, and optimize logistics.

Hercules doors are solutions for a temperature-controlled environment, namely, food manufacturers and distributors in the dairy, meat, produce beverage, pharmaceutical, and food processing industries.

Hörmann high-speed doors provide the best quality, value, and selection of interior and exterior doors to optimize the flow of traffic, improve temperature-controlled areas, and save energy for industrial facilities and commercial buildings.

Rytec doors offer outstanding quality, performance, and reliability. It provides security, safety, energy savings, and requires minimal maintenance.

Rolling steel doors provide long-lasting performance and are reliable solutions for self-storage facilities, warehouses, pharmacies, hospitals, offices, schools, and retail businesses.

Overhead Door and Wayne Dalton carry a full line of rolling steel doors including rolling steel fire doors, rolling grilles, insulated rolling steel fire doors, rolling steel service doors, and rolling sheet doors.

Sectional doors are designed and engineered with high impact resistance, heavy-duty, industrial-strength, and built to enhance building aesthetic. Sectional doors include insulated sectional doors, aluminum full view sectional doors, steel sectional doors, and screen doors.

Overhead Door™ sectional steel and insulated steel doors are economical, durable, and reliable.

Wayne-Dalton’s Aluminum Full-View doors are designed to enhance commercial building visibility and light transmission.

Wayne Dalton’s steel sectional doors have a wide variety of sizes and configurations, which provides high strength and excellent value.

Wayne Dalton insulated sectional doors offer insulation choices, and the highest R-value rating to achieve first-rate thermal efficiency, rigid wind load capacity, and can be customized.

Screen doors are an economical solution for screening bugs, birds, and other unwanted pests from your industrial facility.

DuraFlex doors are the best solution for damaged dock doors in busy loading docks. 

Knock out doors, the most rugged option, are designed to prevent damage to door panels and tracks when impacted.

Commercial door operators provide security and reliability for business facilities.

United States Most Trusted Commercial Door Retailer and Service Provider

DuraServ Corp offers top-quality products, excellent field service, and exceptional optional maintenance programs. DuraServ Corp’s team strives to provide reliable solutions and customer satisfaction in Angier, Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Charlotte, Dallas, Farmville, Fort Myers, Fort Worth, Greater Hickory, Houston, Jacksonville, Jamesburg, Miami, New Orleans, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, Savannah, Shreveport, Sterling, South Windsor, Tampa and Toronto.

Call the experts at DuraServ Corp today at 800-994-2361 or connect with us online to discover the best commercial or industrial door for your company.

[islandgirl37]

I was in New Orleans last September for a travel writing workshop with GEP. I’ve been to a few workshops with them, both for writing and for photography. Boston, Chicago, Miami, Korea, Costa Rico, the photography safari last November (wow, a year’s gone by already), and the one in New Orleans. I always have a great time, learn a lot and look forward to the next one. 🙂

During this workshop we were assigned to come up with story ideas, then actually write a story. We had help on making them more interesting and salable. One of the great things about travel writing and photography is that doing it gives you a focus and incentive to get out there and do all kinds of things.

You may not know it, but I’m actually pretty shy. Focusing on a story gives me the courage to talk to people. Without the story, I’d be way too nervous to do more than say ‘hi, how’re you doing’. With a story in mind, I’ll ask them all kinds of questions since now I have an ‘excuse’. 😉

Before I left for the trip to New Orleans, I asked around for some help and the nice people at the CVB sent me on a riverboat cruise. Specifically- a jazz dinner cruise on the historic Steamboat Natchez. I wrote a story about it, and was supposed to have it published on the website of the company that set up the whole deal with the CVB. Sadly, they shut down before my story ever got published and I haven’t been able to find another spot for it yet (tho I am still trying, in between job hunting and all the other things on my plate).

Here’s the first draft, please give it a read and let me know what you think. I could use the critiques. 😉

Steamboat Natchez (www.steamboatnatchez.com) docks where Toulouse Street dead ends at the Mississippi River, in the French Quarter. You walk up the gangway to take a trip back in time as you slowly steam your way down the Great Mississippi River. You’ll be transported back to the 1800’s, when these boats ruled the river. From only 20 in the 1810s, to over 1200 in 1833. They carried passengers and freight from as far away as Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago, Minneapolis, Little Rock, and further out the Missouri, Arkansas and Red Rivers down the Mississippi River to New Orleans.

Steamboats were built of wood, shallow draft (1-5’ loaded), with the main deck close to the water and used for cargo. Wood burning boilers were placed midships, with the engines aft, shafts turning the paddle wheels. Some added 2-3 decks above that for passengers. Most were simple workboats, but some became quite ornate. For those carrying upper class passengers, they were richly decorated: delicate filagreed railings, large mirrors reflecting gilded highlights, coffered ceilings, velvet upholstery, plush carpets. Fine food, liquor and gambling helped pass the time during the voyage of up to 2 weeks.

Though she was built in 1975- the ninth iteration of the series to carry the name, Steamboat Natchez follows in this tradition and offers daily Mississippi River cruises. She’s a 265’ long 46’ wide stern paddle wheeler, with 3 decks. She’s furnished in the manner of a high class passenger vessel of the mid-1800’s. In only a couple of hours, you can soak in the atmosphere and get a taste of what it was like in the heyday of the Mississippi River steamships. You can go for dinner, Sunday brunch, or just a harbor cruise with no meal served.

I went for a dinner jazz cruise with the Dukes of Dixieland aboard. As I stepped aboard from the gangway, the hostess informed me of the procedure for dinner. Since I had chosen the 1st seating, I was led to my reserved table in the dining room. The setting was impressive, a large room running almost the full length of the vessel. It had large picture windows all the way around, decorative moulded ceiling tiles filling the white coffered overheads, wall to wall carpet, and nicely set tables filling the space.

My table was set for 4 (tho I was by myself). There was a salad already dressed (iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, croutons, vinaigrette), along with silverware and plates, but no water. The waiter soon came by to take drink orders. It took him a while since he had at least a dozen full tables. As the room filled up, another couple was seated at my table, but we still had one seat open. Good, since the tables were tightly packed and it was crowded. My neighbor had to get up every time I needed to get out of my seat. The dinner was buffet style, so I did have to get up a few times.

There were two long buffet tables, one on either side of the room. The servers dressed in chef’s whites  stood behind the chafing dishes to answer any questions and help if you needed it. They had classic Southern recipes like red beans & rice, blackened fish, gumbo, greens, and more ‘mainstream’ dinner classics like pork loin and roast beef. It was all made onboard, hot and fresh. It was OK, but nothing spectacular. For a city as famous for its food as New Orleans, I really expected better of them.

The lights were too low to read by but bright enough to see your food. We were able to have a conversation even with the music in the background since we were at the very back of the room.  The band was set up in front. There was another playing jazz and dixieland outside on the upper deck, I spent most of my time up there. I enjoyed watching the scenery go by, being able to smoke, drink, and still listen to the music.

The live jazz band adds to the atmosphere onboard. It was casual and relaxing. I enjoyed having drinks on the deck, watching the river rolling by, snapping photos of the New Orleans skyline and passing ships. It was easy to imagine myself drifting back to an earlier time. There’s a real sense of history aboard.

Steamers have all but disappeared from the worlds waterways, due to many factors. They usually had a short lifetime (there were many boiler explosions), competition with railroads back in action after the Civil War, displaced by competition with diesel tugs and barges.  The Natchez is one of only 2 true steam paddle wheelers left on the Mississippi River today.

Her engines were originally built for the sternwheeler “Clairton” in 1925. They were recovered when the Clairton was retired and placed in the Natchez, where they are still going strong. Anyone interested in how things work will enjoy wandering around the Natchez. You’re free to take a look in the engine room. Check out the engines (with posted explanations) and the boilers “Thelma” and “Louise” next door. The engineers are rightly proud of their gleaming domain.

The entire crew seemed to love their job, their ship and it showed. They did their job well and took pride in that fact. From the Mate who welcomed me aboard, the engineers, the hostess who showed me to my table, the servers at dinner, to the deckhands who secured the ship back to the dock. Everyone was friendly, polite and answered my questions with a smile.

A cruise on the Steamboat Natchez is a New Orleans experience you just can’t get anywhere else. From the magnificently maintained historical vessel, to the lively jazz bands, to the delicious Southern style cooking (don’t miss the white chocolate bread pudding), to the mighty Mississippi itself. It all adds up to a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours next time you visit New Orleans.

PS- This post is for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Letter N. Join in, all it takes is to come up with a post starting with the letter N. 🙂

Natchez I was in New Orleans last September for a travel writing workshop with GEP. I've been to a few workshops with them, both for writing and for photography.

[marcuspc-blog]

About dropshipping

For several years organisations have use dropshipping as a way to move product to clients. It has actually become preferred specifically with small business. It is among the tools that organisation uses to expand the personnel and to improve the solution. It likewise saves overhead costs it conserves gas and it saves time.It just makes good sense if you are marketing online, and also especially if you are the only in your organisation, to utilize a decrease shipper. When you use a decline shipper you have a larger inventory to provide your clients. Most business do not have large storehouses to save product much more so most business could not afford to rent or own a big storage facility. Several business operate from one room in the house and utilize drop shipping to expand the company facilities. It is a really simple procedure if you wish to use a decrease shipper in order to help you move your goods. Some services have actually ended up being a success due to the fact that they have actually made use of dropshipping to enhance their company. When you are using drop delivery as a way to move your product or to send out orders you actually do not need to leave your house. real estate new orleans la All could be done from your computer and even a mail order magazine. The majority of residences today have computers and use them to sell product online. All you have to do is send out the wholesale expense of the goods to your decrease shipper as well as the name and also address of your consumer and also the dropshipping firm will certainly send your merchandise right to your consumer's door. This saves you a great deal of time since you do not need to address labels you do not need to wrap bundles then most likely to the blog post office. You could stay at home as well as do all this from your desk. It is much more hassle-free to dropship when you are obtaining your merchandise from the very same business that is doing the dropshipping. Contact your decrease carrier and also come to be really knowledgeable about the policies as well as guidelines of the company. In many instances you can conserve money if you get bigger quantities of items from the firm. This in some cases depends on whether you are dropshipping retail or whether you are dropshipping wholesale. There are lots of business that offer both retail and wholesale as well as will dropship for both. Maybe the most vital thing you need to recognize prior to you start dropshipping is policies of the business.The company policies will let you understand what you can do as well as just what you could not do. Something you should think about is what you will do with the product if it is returned. Some dropship companies will certainly not permit you to return goods. Some firms that offer to do dropshipping will certainly sale return product locally. Remember to look into the dropshipper's credibility; additionally find out how much time the firm has actually been in business. When a business has stayed in business for some time you will certainly understand it incidentally he does business. If you remain in uncertainty about a company you are considering you can contact the Better Business Bureau.