#cold aisle containment manufacture

[data-center-containment]

Data Center Containment: Types, Benefits & Challenges

We are living in a world where the objective of every IT company is to turn data into information and information into insight. In such scenarios, data centers stand as the backbone of operations for such organizations. Hence, it is obvious that optimizing data center efficiency is no more a choice but the only option to ensure seamless functioning of critical factors such as cooling efficiency, airflow management, and adaptability to evolving demands. One of the key solutions emerging in this realm is data center containment, which aims to customize airflow dynamics to fit the unique needs of each data center environment.

Understanding the need for containment solutions

Since the operational efficiency of a data center is crucial in any IT ecosystem, the need for effective solutions is also increasing. The focus is on increasing the efficiency with which temperature fluctuations can be managed in data centers while optimizing energy consumptions.

Here, containment solutions serve as robust mechanism to separate cold air supply from hot exhaust air, thus stabilizing temperatures and enhancing equipment performance. By reducing energy consumption and improving cooling efficiency, containment solutions contribute significantly to the agility and sustainability of data center operations.

Types of containment solutions

Primarily there are two types of containment solutions that dominate the market: Cold Aisle Containment (CAC) and Hot Aisle Containment (HAC). CAC surrounds the cold aisle with ceiling panels and doors, ensuring a uniform flow of cold air to maintain equipment stability. On the other hand, HAC channels hot air away from equipment, preventing it from impacting overall thermal conditions.

Benefits and challenges

Containment solutions offer a plethora of benefits, including improved cooling efficiency, reduced energy consumption, and enhanced equipment performance. However, implementing these solutions comes with its set of challenges, such as ensuring proper airflow management and addressing issues like hot spots and air leakage.

Netrack's approach towards airflow management

Netrack, a leading provider of data center solutions, recognizes the diverse needs of data centers and offers tailored containment solutions to address them effectively. By segmenting issues into five distinct zones and providing specialized solutions like brush tiles, Racks mounted on plinths equipped with Air-seal kits, Blank Panel and Brush Module, Air-Diverter kit and lastly the containment solution. Netrack ensures comprehensive airflow management tailored to each data center's requirements.

Choosing wisely: CAC vs. HAC

Netrack being both cold aisle containment manufacture and hot aisle containment manufacture points out to the fact that making a choice among the two depends on various factors, including the size of the data center and the intensity of equipment usage. While CAC is ideal for larger data centers with extensive rack deployments, HAC offers a cost-effective solution for smaller setups with fewer racks.

Enhancing Containment Efficiency

Netrack's commitment to optimizing containment efficiency extends to structural design, customized blanking panels, vertical curtains, and smart door solutions. These measures ensure minimal mixing of hot and cold air, thereby maximizing cooling efficiency and equipment performance.

As data centers continue to evolve in complexity and scale, the importance of containment solutions in ensuring optimal efficiency cannot be overstated. By understanding the unique needs of each data center environment and offering customized containment solutions, providers like Netrack play a crucial role in shaping the future of data center infrastructure. Investing in efficient containment solutions not only enhances operational efficiency but also paves the way for sustainable and resilient data center ecosystems.

[netrack-india]

Hot Aisle Containment vs. Cold Aisle Containment: Benefits and Challenges

The growing demand for efficient data management has given rise to the need for effective data center solutions. In this regard, data center performance can be optimized with efficient cooling and airflow management. Hence, emerged the need for containment solutions which are designed to separate the cold air supply from the hot exhaust air. This helps to stabilize the temperature which results in enhancing equipment performance, and reducing energy consumption.

Understanding containment solutions and their need

There are two types of containment solutions used in data centers: Cold Aisle Containment (CAC) and Hot Aisle Containment (HAC). Cold aisle containment surrounds the cold aisle with ceiling panels and doors at the ends of the aisle. This setup provides a uniform flow of cold air directly to the equipment through the perforated floor tiles. This remains contained within the aisle, preventing it from mixing with the hot exhaust air. The sealing of the cold aisle ensures that hot air does not reach the servers. This helps to maintain a stable temperature for the equipment.

On the other hand, hot aisle containment ensures that the hot exhaust air is removed from the equipment into cooling units through ducts. This method prevents hot air from impacting the overall thermal conditions of the server room. This also reduces the chance of hot spots by controlling the cold air supply.

Each of these containment solutions offer significant benefits. Depending upon the requirement and considering the challenges associated with each, the choice should be made carefully.

Both containment solutions improve the cooling efficiency by ensuring the equipment receives a steady supply of cold air.

With stable temperature and improved airflow management, it reduces the energy consumption for cooling, hence, saving cost.

The impact of stable temperature and effective cooling results in improved performance and equipment health

Since hotspots are common, maintaining consistent temperature requires detailed planning and implementation. Again, addressing issues like air leakage ensures the efficiency of the containment solution. In fact, the choice between CAC and HAC depends on various factors, including the size of the data center and the intensity of equipment usage.

Making the right choice!

Netrack, a leading provider of data center solutions, recognizes the diverse needs of data centers and offers tailored containment solutions to address these effectively. Netrack recommends hot aisle containment for scenarios where the area is small, and the number of racks is smaller since there is no additional requirement for peripheral cooling for the server room. Similarly, when the number of racks is more, and the area is big, instead of wasting energy to cool the entire server room, the cooling process should be confined to the electrical equipment only with cold aisle containment.

Enhancing Containment Efficiency

By understanding the unique needs of each data center environment, Netrack offers customized containment solutions. Netrack's commitment to optimizing containment efficiency includes structural design innovations, customized blanking panels, vertical curtains, and smart door solutions. These measures ensure minimal mixing of hot and cold air, maximizing cooling efficiency and equipment performance. Investing in efficient containment solutions not only enhances operational efficiency but also paves the way for sustainable and resilient data center ecosystems.

[jonboudposts]

Cafe Life #3: Waitrose South Harrow Cafe

Pot of Tea (Earl Gray) = £2.25

There is a creeping horror to Sundays in the suburbs that sometimes overwhelms. Due to overwork, I have not felt it for years; feeling merely happy to not be anywhere near to workplace for twenty four hours and having failed at the traditional pursuits of DIY or such practical activity, I have managed to avoid those cold, sleek palaces of consumption. Something about such places fills me with an odd horror; somehow associating all the desperation, fear and reactionary mindset of these areas with feeling that hanging out in these places conveys a kind of success, yet knowing that is a total lie and not being able to do anything about it.  I so deeply wish to be away from the kinds of people I grew up with and their small cruelty.

But there they are. Drifting through the aisles mocking my pathetic attempts to do anything different with the life I was given.  In the immortal words of Harry Dean Stanton in Repo Man; ‘normal fucking people. I hate ‘em’. Supermarkets at least contain things that are of comparatively higher importance – food and drink – that are subject to plenty of crisis right now. Finally you are all cottoning on to the dangers or the just-in-time economic model and the obsession with outsourcing that has resulted in a country that fails to function a little more everyday, brought to you by people who swear blind allegiance to the country.  In fact they have made their career on attacking anyone as unpatriotic for daring to voice dissent or say that obsessing over a flag (ironically made overseas) is a bit pathetic

We needed to pick something up and had limited time, so the on-site cafe at Waitrose South Harrow would have to do today. Responsibilities prevent running around looking for the cool cafes, so we take time with the squares

The tea is obviously entering the pricier end of the scale but it is very well brewed. The food here is pretty cheap and we make a vow to return for breakfast one Sunday morning. Anywhere with sensibly price porridge is on the list for sure.

We get into conversation about the great return to the office that so many are now facing. Being demanded of that they come back to the physical workplace when all these non-jobs have been done perfectly well from a back room in suburbia for two years now. Britain has an economy existing on thin paper and they do not even manufacture the paper. If in fact any economy truly exists at all any more. There is nothing there; nothing made, nothing much sold or provided. I spend my days emersed in this and still cannot make head or tail out of it. All there seems to be is a head-on collision with reality; that capitalism has destroyed everything and only a united response can rebuild the world, without any input from the people presently controlling everything.

I mop up the slight spills of the small milk jug with a napkin, then head for the door. Things to do, places to go. Why does time insist on it’s cruel, rapid passing? I am not smart enough to make it through this world. Unfortunately, neither are the fuckers who run it.

[dietdrclinic]

Gluten-free food options

Ever wondered if that ice-cold Coco-Cola you were eying up is gluten-free? Ever wanted to know if pizza and pasta are gluten-free? How about your favorite cheeseburger and fries? How about the Vodka and Beer? Whatever it is that you are looking for, we got you covered in this list of gluten-free foods. A gluten-free foods list can be a valuable resource. You have been spending hours and hours navigating stores and restaurants to find gluten-free food options and it may be really challenging at times. Therefore on hand, the gluten-free foods list below might help you know what to look for (and what to look out for) when choosing grains and other foods that may contain gluten. Below are a few things to look out for when you're buying gluten-free foods. 1. Gluten-Free Whole Grains: Oats, Cereals, Bread, and More…

Grains (including bread, pasta, rice, and crackers), specifically whole grains, are an important part of a healthy diet. Whole grains are a good source of healthy carbohydrates, providing energy to get you through the day. Most whole grains are high in fiber, which keeps you full and helps with digestion. Though many grains have gluten, a wide variety is naturally gluten-free.

Naturally Gluten-Free Grains & Starches: Rice Quinoa Millet Oats (use oats labeled "gluten-free," as oats are often cross-contaminated with wheat and barley.) Cassava/Yuca Sorghum Teff Corn Buckwheat Amaranth Potatoes and potato flour

2. Gluten-Free Vegetables & Fruits All fresh, whole vegetables and fruits are naturally gluten-free and important to include in a gluten-free diet. Organic local produce mostly delivers a variety of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. However, you need to look out for sneaky gluten once you move out of the produce aisle. Plain fresh and frozen (without sauce) vegetables are all gluten-free, but make sure to double-check ingredient lists on packages to be sure. When buying canned veggies, buy those packed with water or natural juices (typically the healthier option anyway). Here's what to look out for when selecting gluten-free fruit and vegetables.

What to Avoid When Shopping for Fruits and Vegetables: Hydrolyzed wheat protein Modified food starch: Check the label if it does not specify what type of starch is used, and check with the manufacturer, as it may be wheat. Malt: Including malt syrup, malt vinegar, malt extract, malt flavoring Gluten stabilizer Maltodextrin: This is OK when made from corn, potato, or rice starch. If it is made from wheat, it will be labeled: you may have a reaction, though many claim the gluten is destroyed in processing.

Safe Ingredients: Corn-starch Potato starch/potato starch flour Distilled vinegar Mono- and diglycerides Oat gum Citric acid, lactic acid, and malic acid

3. Gluten-Free Proteins Most protein sources-both animal and vegetable proteins-are naturally gluten-free. You may use the below list to help you decide which proteins can fit into a gluten-free diet. Naturally Gluten-Free Proteins: Red meat: Fresh beef, pork, lamb, goat, bison, duck, etc. (Avoid marinades as if gluten is added it might sneak into your meat) Poultry: Fresh chicken and turkey (Check if any marination is added) Seafood: Fresh fish, scallops, lobster, clams and more are all naturally gluten-free. (Check if any marination is added) Tofu: It's made from soy, which is gluten-free, but check for any additional ingredients with gluten. Beans Nuts and seeds

Proteins That Need a Second Look: Processed meats: Including hot dogs, pepperoni, sausage, etc. These may have gluten added, so be sure to check the ingredient list and avoid those with wheat gluten, wheat starch, or wheat dextrin. Cold cuts: Cross-contamination can also happen at the deli on the meat slicer. Cold cuts may have gluten-containing ingredients added Ground meat: Ground beef or ground turkey can have gluten added in as filler. Be sure to check the ingredients carefully. Veggie burgers and other meat substitutes: Some flavors and brands are made with ingredients that contain gluten-check the labels.

4. Gluten-Free Sauces, Spices, and Condiments In many common condiments, gluten-containing ingredients can be used as thickeners, stabilizers, or flavor enhancers. Wheat flour is a common thickener in many sauces and marinades, which means they contain gluten. Look out for cross-contamination once these items are in your home. For example, a knife that spreads mustard on wheat bread shouldn't be dipped back into the mustard jar if you want it to stay gluten-free.

Sauces, Spices, and Condiments That Are Usually Safe: Mustard: Some specialty or flavored mustards may contain gluten so always check the ingredients. Mayonnaise: Check the ingredients to be sure though typically not made with gluten. Dry spices: Single-ingredient herbs and spices (think dried basil, garlic powder, chili powder) do not contain gluten, though because of cross-contamination concerns it's best to look for specifically labeled gluten-free spices or check with the manufacturer.

Sauces, Spices, and Condiments That Need a Second Look: Ketchup and Worcestershire sauce: Both condiments can be made using malt vinegar, which is not gluten-free. Double-check the ingredients. Barbecue sauce: Avoid BBQ sauces made with barley-based beer, soy sauce, malt vinegar, and barley malt flour as these typically contain gluten. Soy sauce: Soy sauce is traditionally made with wheat, so it usually is not gluten-free unless otherwise marked. Malt vinegar: Malt vinegar is mostly found in some salad dressings and sauces and it's not gluten-free. However, white vinegar, distilled vinegar, and apple cider vinegar are all gluten-free.

5. Gluten-Free Desserts & Sweets Many sweets and desserts are made with wheat flour or other ingredients with gluten. Be mindful that gluten-free sweets are not necessarily healthier for you than regular treats but they might prevent a bad reaction if you are sensitive to gluten.

Sweets That Are Usually Safe: Chocolate: Chocolate does not naturally contain gluten. There is also a risk of cross-contamination, so it's best to check the label on the chocolate. Hard candy and gummies: Candies don’t usually contain gluten; avoid those listing "wheat flour" as an ingredient. Ice cream, sherbet, gelato, frozen yogurt: These treats are generally gluten-free, but steer clear of those with pretzels, cookie dough, graham crackers, brownie bites, and other gluten-containing add-ins. Sweets to Avoid: Grain-based desserts: Cookies, cakes, brownies, pies, doughnuts, pastries, cheesecake, etc. are almost always made with gluten unless marked "gluten-free." Licorice: Sweet candy may be made with wheat flour and therefore is not gluten-free unless otherwise noted on the packaging. Barley malt: Avoid sweets made with this ingredient, which is used to sweeten some candies and chocolates.

6. Gluten-Free Drinks and Beverages Water, of course, is naturally gluten-free and is your best healthy way to stay hydrated. For all prepared beverages, be sure to check the ingredients, as variations and blends may contain gluten.

Drinks and Beverages That Are Usually Safe: • Coffee and tea: These beverages are both naturally gluten-free, but if you're sensitive to gluten it's best to check and make sure there was no cross-contamination with your coffee beans or tea leaves or added ingredients in blended beverages. • Juices, sodas, and sports drinks: Check the label to be safe, but these generally won't have added gluten-containing ingredients

[sparticlem]

Canatec Pte Ltd - Chill Out! Prolonging Precision Cooling Lifespan 101

Precision cooling systems play a crucial role in maintaining the optimal operating conditions of computer room air conditioning units, ensuring the reliability and efficiency of critical IT equipment. Proactive and strategic maintenance is essential to protect your investment and extend the life of precision cooling equipment. With this, examine important maintenance advice and learn helpful suggestions for raising the longevity and efficiency of precision cooling systems.

1. Regular Inspection and Cleaning

Maintaining precision cooling equipment requires routine inspections. Start by giving all the parts, including the coils, filters, and fans, a close inspection. Accumulation of dust and debris can obstruct airflow, reducing the system's effectiveness. Regular cleaning of these parts keeps obstructions at bay and guarantees reliable operation. Plan thorough inspections every three months to identify possible problems before they become more serious.

2. Airflow Optimisation

Precision cooling systems must operate with optimal efficiency in airflow. Organise IT hardware so that there is unimpeded airflow surrounding cooling units. This easy step contributes to equipment longevity by improving cooling efficiency and lessening the strain on the machinery. Additionally, consider implementing hot and cold aisle containment strategies to further optimise airflow within the data centre environment.

3. Temperature and Humidity Calibration

The fundamental function of precision cooling systems is to maintain exact temperature and humidity levels. Calibrate and modify settings regularly according to your data centre's unique needs. Sensor-equipped monitoring tools can guarantee that the cooling system reacts quickly to changes in the surrounding environment. This proactive calibration raises the system's overall reliability by reducing wear and tear.

4. Lubrication of Moving Parts

Precision cooling systems have several moving components, like fans and motors, which should be properly lubricated to function smoothly. Incorporate lubrication duties into your routine maintenance programme to lower friction and stop premature wear. Utilising premium lubricants for the parts of your cooling system guarantees peak performance and reduces the possibility of unplanned malfunctions.

ALSO READ: A Guide To Precision Cooling Systems: Why They Are A Necessity For IT Spaces

5. Electrical System Checks

Electrical components are essential to the operation of precision cooling equipment. Ensure testing and inspecting of the electrical systems—including the control panels, connections, and wiring—regularly. Look for any wear, corrosion, or loose connections that might jeopardise the system's functionality. Resolve any problems as soon as possible to avoid electrical outages that could cause cooling systems to malfunction.

6. Software and Firmware Updates

Keep up with manufacturer-provided firmware and software updates. Bug fixes, performance improvements, and new features that improve precision cooling systems' overall stability and effectiveness are frequently included in these updates. Regular updates guarantee that your equipment performs at its best while protecting against potential vulnerabilities.

7. Training and Certification for Maintenance Personnel

For precision cooling system maintenance to be effective, the maintenance staff must receive the necessary training and certification. Give your staff the know-how and abilities they need to recognise possible problems early on, solve them, and move on. The lifespan of your precision cooling equipment can be increased and downtime can be minimised with the help of well-trained staff.

Conclusion

Precision cooling equipment reliability is a must in data centres. You can greatly increase the lifespan of your precision cooling systems by following a thorough maintenance schedule that includes routine inspections, software updates, temperature calibration, airflow optimisation, lubrication, and electrical system checks. Remember, proactive maintenance not only prolongs the life of your equipment but also makes your data centre operations more sustainable and efficient overall. Precision cooling, the foundation of computer room air conditioning, necessitates a careful approach to maintenance; this investment pays off in continuous performance and extended equipment lifespan.

Visit Canatec to elevate your data centre's climate control to new heights.

Read More: https://mnbusinesssearch.com/chill-out-prolonging-precision-cooling-lifespan-101/

[sunplncommunication]

Hinged door Hinged door

Split outforward doors with two knobs, with buffer automatic closing device, door open angle bigger than 110°. with 5mm thickness transperant monitoring window. Able to install lighting switches, roof panel emergency stop control device, access control card reader, etc.

[the-role-of-server-racks]

The Role of Server Racks in Data Center Efficiency

In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, data centers stand as the backbone of modern businesses, managing vast amounts of digital information critical for operations. Among the myriad components contributing to data center efficiency, server racks play a pivotal role, often overlooked but essential for optimal performance and functionality.  

At the core of any data center infrastructure lies the Server Rack, a framework designed to house and organize computing equipment such as servers, switches, routers, and storage devices. These racks serve as the structural foundation, ensuring proper airflow, cable management, and accessibility while maximizing space utilization within the facility. 

The Importance of Server Racks in Data Center Efficiency 

Optimized Space Utilization: Space optimization is crucial in today's data-driven world. Server racks enable data centers to efficiently utilize floor space by consolidating equipment into organized, stackable configurations. This compact arrangement not only minimizes the physical footprint but also enhances accessibility for maintenance and upgrades, thereby streamlining operations and reducing downtime. 

Enhanced Cooling Efficiency: Heat dissipation is a significant concern in data center environments, as excessive heat can compromise equipment performance and lifespan. Server racks are engineered with airflow management features such as perforated doors, chimney ducts, and hot aisle/cold aisle containment systems, facilitating efficient cooling and temperature regulation. By maintaining optimal operating temperatures, these racks contribute to energy efficiency and lower cooling costs, ensuring uninterrupted operation of critical infrastructure. 

Simplified Cable Management: Cable clutter poses a logistical challenge, hampers airflow, and obstructs maintenance efforts. Server racks incorporate cable management solutions such as cable trays, routing channels, and Velcro straps, enabling neat and organized cable routing. This not only improves aesthetics but also enhances airflow dynamics, reducing the risk of equipment overheating and improving overall system reliability. 

Scalability and Flexibility: As businesses expand and technology evolves, scalability becomes imperative. Server racks offer scalability and flexibility, allowing data centers to seamlessly adapt to changing requirements. With modular designs and adjustable mounting options, these racks accommodate diverse equipment configurations and facilitate easy expansion or reconfiguration as needed, future-proofing data center infrastructure investments. 

Netrack Dubai: Setting the Standard for Superior Server Racks 

When it comes to server racks, Netrack Dubai stands out as a trusted provider of cutting-edge solutions engineered for performance, reliability, and efficiency. Here's how Netrack Dubai ensures that its server racks exceed industry standards: 

Engineering Excellence: At Netrack Dubai, every server rack is meticulously engineered using premium-grade materials and state-of-the-art manufacturing processes. From robust steel frames to precision-cut components, each rack undergoes rigorous quality control to ensure structural integrity and durability, capable of withstanding the demands of mission-critical environments. 

Innovative Design Features: Netrack Dubai's server racks boast innovative design features aimed at optimizing functionality and efficiency. Whether it's integrated cooling systems, tool-less installation mechanisms, or customizable configurations, these racks are tailored to address the unique challenges modern data centres face, empowering businesses to maximize performance while minimizing operational costs. 

Comprehensive Product Range: Recognizing customers' diverse needs, Netrack Dubai offers a comprehensive range of server racks catering to various specifications and requirements. From standard rack-mount enclosures to specialized solutions for high-density computing and edge computing applications, Netrack Dubai ensures clients have access to the right rack for their specific use case, backed by expert guidance and support. 

Commitment to Customer Satisfaction: Netrack Dubai is committed to delivering exceptional value to its customers through best-in-class products and unparalleled service and support. From initial consultation and design assistance to installation, maintenance, and after-sales service, Netrack Dubai's team of experts is dedicated to ensuring a seamless experience and maximizing customer satisfaction at every step of the journey. 

Conclusion 

In the dynamic landscape of data center operations, server racks are the backbone of efficiency, facilitating the optimal performance, reliability, and scalability. As businesses strive to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive environment, partnering with a trusted provider like Netrack Dubai ensures access to best-in-class solutions engineered to meet the evolving demands of modern data centers. With a commitment to innovation, quality, and customer satisfaction, Netrack Dubai continues to set the standard for superior server racks, empowering organizations to unlock their full potential in the digital age. 

By prioritizing the selection of the right server rack solution, businesses can lay a solid foundation for their data center infrastructure, driving efficiency, reliability, and, ultimately, success in today's fast-paced digital landscape. 

[ckcker]

Overuse of the Word ‘Radical’

Before people have found themselves, recalculated an identity and glid off on a bespoke tangent, they are much more interesting to be around.  Once a list of comforts has been etched and they’ve more-or-less walled up an unwilled experimental period, they are no longer entertaining or relatable.  I understand this is better for them.  This makes life more lenient to their command, and there is a robust secretion of focus, and the effervescent elixir of positivity can allegedly taste most scrummy.  That is, I profess to understand the intent of no longer wanting the fuckiest vastations and unnaturally performed slangs to be the accidental cologne under which a person summarizes for themselves, “life is short.”  

I looked out my window and watched a middle-aged woman walk a very cute beagle.  Yes, “life is short” should only be summarized in the thoughts of a person when that person has sensibly ratified what they will and will not do going forward, or will and will not say.  Only then does it provide one steering committee’s ounce of concentration.  I understand that people want these circumstances; the circumstances brim with security.  It makes people less interesting, they interact with strangers less, they retain too much personal preference.  But it is almost inevitable; I looked out my window to identify a new moderately-paced peripheral being.  It was another woman walking a different beagle.  The woman looked young and the beagle was much more beige.  I wondered if my personal preferences had become too large.  

If only a careful equation could be worked out that harmonized all three of my major needs — my wilderness, my security, and my revenge —in order to brine the most glorious success.  I did not have the resilient focus or innate talent to formulate such a core-calming equation; not being able to do this was part of who I am, I celebrated.  And so I waddled along, a synthetic eyebrow droop here, a longing for a reserved and handsome chainsaw-wielding man there. Revenge, wilderness, and then, the cherished boredom of security — who I am. If these needs sound as if contained in hard neon lines forming an easily surveilled three-way split screen, the experience registered more accurately as: “coprolite in sfumato.”  

A common day involved — I doubted my transformational anger.  I doubted my sexual motor.  I doubted my folder of preferences.  And, within the progression of all this distrust and fog, I would eat a snack, such as a medley of sweet potato, yucca and beet chips dipped in cold, chunky red salsa.  Then it was time to go to work, where I continued to compulsively ruminate on a life-transcending equation, only occasionally reminding myself I probably did not have the native ability to do so.  Interrupting the formulation would be a customer asking on what aisle were the scented candles, or a disheveled fifty-something man dropping off a resume and interested in a barely-above minimum wage job.  After he had left and I looked at his resume, I noticed he had a PhD in, essentially, rocket science.  It appeared he had been laid off from, maybe, a mid-range position at a weapons manufacturing company almost two and a half years ago.  Laid off being the guess, because what reason other than professional desperation would lead such a person at such a position in life to seek out hourly pay directing customers towards our petite section of low quality scented candles.  Upon showing the resume to my co-worker Rachel, she shook her head to emphasize, “this economy…”  

Following this mournful swirlie of cognitive menace, I would exit work to deposit myself in the plaza parking lot, which I hoped would be delicately glistening with a slipcover of early spring dew, then drilled with leviathan atmosphere by the breathtakingly tall streetlights, enveloping the concrete flatlands in diaphanous bleach.  I would attempt to remind myself the bleach served a pragmatic and not aesthetic purpose — to see in the parking lot at night — and, in subcategories: in order to not be so easily robbed, attacked, or unable to locate one’s car.  These explanations were then quickly deleted in stunning on-the-fly edits, concurrent to the gradual translucence of all screens portraying the unspectacular busy work of my Grand Equation.  Security, wilderness, revenge.  In the parking lot after work, I only noticed that I had transitioned slowly out of attempting to untangle the rotting mass of obsolete audiovisual cables, discarded long hairs suddenly noticed on the underside of porcelain bathroom sinks, and once-used resistance bands indifferently expunged into narrow basement storage areas ruled by camel crickets, that sinewed the span of my Three Needs.  I had come nothing close to a solution.  But I had successfully forgotten that was important to me; I stared at the enameled blacktop in the slather of unreasonable LED, and added, in the distance behind it, the sparse and typically speeding traffic of the county highway, lit in subdued, approachable yolk.  

I felt less encumbered and without noticing, so why go back.  I scratched the upper right quadrant of my goddamn ass.  And then, in an unscaled screech of a large collection of clown horns, once again fell through that combination trap door-cum-swivel bookcase entrance of my Doha nights.  Because of the lights — the swollen dioptrics, the vacuum suck and seal of skyline, the many-colored oblong knicks of illumination.  The fruitless attempt to clog that infinite double dip ache for spectacle.  The bloating whiff of possibility that soaks the clothes in a humid foreign city when young, at night. 

It was possible to, at one time in life, feel like anything was possible.  It was possible to leave the country for the first time in your life, and possible to feel excitement about leaving the country.  It was possible for people with PhDs in rocket science to be without work for so long that they are driven to apply to a regionally popular home goods store.  It was possible to be attacked in a strip mall parking lot.  

[for7]

the christmas spirit | jimin

synopsis. christmas... did you ever wonder where it came from? 

☁︎ imagine park jimin having an uncanny experience on christmas years ago, with a little girl that looks just like his girlfriend...

pairing. jimin x reader genre. fantasy au + fluff word count. 3,5k

ah, christmas.

a celebration for millions of families from all over the world, during a particular day. a celebration filled with laughter, presents, love. who in this world didn’t know about christmas, its customs and magic? the answer was not astounding: no one. everyone knew christmas and knew what it represented, both religiously and culturally.

christmas was, for many, an important event. this simple date on the calendar triggered a frenzy in everyone, a frenzy that would always start months before the date. whether it was the decoration shops, the chocolatiers, the gardeners, they were all too busy to enjoy this period. a period that rhymed with joy but, above all, with benefit.

sell. sell. sell. christmas was all about it. the shopkeepers had only this word rolling from their tongues, they, who painted their shop fronts red and green, decorating them with poorly drawn snowflakes and glittering garlands that made the most innocent eyes dream.

all citizens throughout the world were overwhelmed, but no one was as occupied as a certain city.

christunix was a city so small and remote from all that it was not on any atlas, planisphere, nor globe. few really knew where it was and what it contained. the wanderers, black-hearted, could only see from the town the multicoloured lights filtered through a thick fog that seemed to come to life if you tried to cross it.

although almost unknown to all, kept intact by this magical gate, those lucky enough to know about it were very real. they were rare and were the men and women who had kept their child’s eyes despite their passage into the adult world. they were the ones who still managed to marvel at the little things that illuminated everyday life, in their routine coloured with a monotonous grey. they were the ones who had once stumbled upon an old grimoire called “the christmas story”.

if one day you ever had this work of inestimable value in your hands, through these yellowed and worn out pages, you would discover in golden inked words that the christmas tradition was born at the heart of this mysterious village as well as the white-bearded man that would become its allegory.

the first man, who would be called differently by children all over the world, had initially only been a toy manufacturer called klaus. of this man, the inhabitants of christunix did not know many things, all too young to have known him. only his faithful companion, an immortal but old elf — with a name far too long — could boast of having rubbed shoulders with him.

every sunday, he would gather the village’s children in his cottage and tell them stories of yesteryear about his companion. the first distribution of gifts, described as catastrophic, was one of the best known and adored tales for the children. this had happened several centuries before but, for the elf, it had happened a day before. just yesterday, he was helping his friend make toys, just yesterday he was riding in a flying sled to distribute billions of gifts to kind children from around the world.

ah… those days were as close as they were far away.

no one, not even the grimoire, knew how klaus had died. all the rumours, each crazier than the other, circulated in the village. some spoke of a sled accident, others of natural death. however, many thought it was the winter spirit that had enveloped him when his time had come, making him disappear from the face of the earth in a cloud of snow, leaving behind his workshop, his elves, and his knowledge.

a natural knowledge which mother nature had blessed him with, and the descendants of his lineage. an innate talent, the capacity to make from a simple piece of wood a functional toy able to let children’s eyes shine. scientists would talk about a hereditary gene; the inhabitants of the village would talk about a gift.

only the sons of the klaus clan could bear this blessing. for centuries, this was how the family worked. the siblings’ first son, the presumed heir, was to take part in a ceremony on the winter solstice day of his first year on earth. when the moon was at its highest point in the starry sky, empty of all visual pollution, and the snow fell in hundreds of flakes, the one charged with reigning over the world of christmas would place the heir on a sliced tree trunk. it was said that klaus himself had used the wood of this tree to make his first toy.

if the heir were to be a bearer of the gift, then, according to tradition, a white and red aurora borealis would appear in the sky, white dust would surround the newborn’s body as a sign of eternal protection from the winter spirit.

this rare event had only happened five times, and it was long hoped that the new heir would be the sixth. snomi was not the eldest of his family but he was the only boy, making him the worthy heir of the gift. all the inhabitants of the village had hoped for his birth, a blessing. without a boy, what would become of christmas?

when it was finally announced throughout the village that a boy had been born, the inhabitants had celebrated this news for a whole week.

you see, klaus’ fifth descendant had been unlucky about his offspring, some even spoke of a curse. five children, four daughters. the last one, the boy, was thus perceived as a miracle.

for the next three hundred and sixty-five days, all covered him with presents, endowed him as if he was their own child. the inhabitants of christunix were traditional people, attached to legends and customs. knowing that this child would one day be the one who would manage christmas triggered in them a sense of pride and need to protect him.

when the winter solstice finally arrived, the entire village climbed the blue mountain to reach the highest point of their land. all piled up around the sawn tree trunk. in the centre of this elated crowd, the child’s parents, both dressed in their traditional white and red coats, stood proudly. next to them, the old elf was alternating his gaze between the position of the moon and his gold-bed watch, old of a few centuries.

“one more minute.”

the mother transferred the sleeping baby into the arms of her father, who advanced towards the tree trunk, snow screeching under each of his steps. he laid him on the wood, caressing with his huge thumb the delicate skin of his cheek. a tear of pride slipped down his cheek and landed in his beard, but no one noticed; all had their eyes turned on the sky.

“let the ceremony of the heir begin.”

the moment the old elf’s voice sounded, the moonlight aligned with the tree trunk, thus illuminating the baby’s face with a sky-blue hue. all the inhabitants began singing in an ancient language, a mixture of scandinavian and latin. with their words, they were invoking the winter spirit and the wandering soul of klaus, the only beings capable of awakening the gift sleeping within the heir’s heart.

when the last words of the traditional song rang out, the inhabitants waited for the aurora borealis to appear.

but it never came.

whispers rose in the ranks, cries echoed. what was going on? had the ceremony been performed correctly? was it a calendar error? a lot of questions demanding answers were shouted at the parents who remained frozen, disabused. a strong breeze rose in the air, running through everyone’s shivering bodies, making the baby cried.

the child did not possess the gift.

meanwhile, far away from all the chaos, in the easternmost house of the village, the screams echoed.

“put that down, sunmi! you’re going to f—” a thud, followed by crying. “fall… well… oh my god! y/n, leave that elf alone!” the oldest of the four daughters, iclyn, shouted.

hearing her first name, the youngest of the girls wobbled towards her father’s workshop while giggling. her immaculate white hair, button nose and always pink cheekbones gave her the appearance of a little angel. however, as many have said, appearances can sometimes be misleading. y/n, especially because of her age of no more than five years, was the most agitated of the fifth heir’s daughters. while the twins iclyn and lumi exuded the wisdom that came with being a descendant of klaus, the youngest perfectly symbolised the malice and carelessness of children.

still laughing, her eyes sparkling, the child entered her father’s huge workshop. toys filled gigantic shelves and the noise seemed to be a constant element in this real factory. the elves, though most of the time playful, were busy with their task.

making, painting and packing thousands of gifts was no mean feat.

“miss klaus, what are you doing here? you should be at the ceremony!”

juniper, one of her father’s closest elves, pulled her by the sleeve, wishing to bring her back to her house. this was without considering the stubbornness of the girl who planted her feet on the ground, making it difficult for the elf and his little arms to drag her back.

“don’t want to! it boring! not even cookies… cold…” she murmured, arms folded, a pout on her lips. “i want to see toys!”

“miss klaus, come back here!”

ignoring the elf’s words, the girl began to saunter in the wide aisles of the workshop. it was her favourite place in the village. to know that her father was organising all this was very impressive, especially for a four-year-old. her sparkling gaze observed the actions of the elves. she laughed when she saw one tangled in the gift paper. sometimes tiny ‘wow’ would escape her mouth at the sight of toys, all more beautiful than the other.

however, it was a very special object that caught her attention, awakening her childish curiosity.

a snowball, depicting a fireplace decorated with christmas stockings, was delicately placed on the desk where her father would imagine and design new toys. looking around her once, then twice, to see if no one was watching her, she walked silently towards the workbench too big for her. her wrinkled eyes, a sign of her intense thinking session, opened wide while a blissful smile was painted on her face.

she had an idea.

the child grabbed cardboard boxes, which would later be used to pack bicycles, and stacked them to create an almost-staircase. with difficulty—her little arms did not contain much strength—she hoisted herself to the top, nearly falling several times. when she was finally standing on the workbench, y/n took the snowball in her little pudgy hands.

“wow…”

she hadn’t even shaken it, but snowflakes were already falling on the chimney. on closer inspection, she saw that it was lighted. putting it down at its original location, the child’s curious pupils swept the office with her eyes. she realised that on it was placed a gigantic map of the world. in her head, the names of the cities she already knew jostled.

her father, and her grandfather before him, kept telling exciting stories about all the cities they would visit on december 25th. these tales would change over the years, and the cities were never twice the same.

rubbing her skull with her fist, the little girl tried to remember the name of a city her grandfather would always talk about.

se…

sea…

“seoul!”

the moment the name of the city was pronounced, the snowball began to turn on its own. faster and faster, until the chimney was gone, giving way to a blurry image. the doors of the workshop opened in a big crash, slamming against the walls. a thick cloud of snow dust entered the room, long and lively as a snake, and flew around the workbench as if it was looking for someone. all the elves who had turned to the entrance at the noise tried to close the doors, but nothing helped. many were already starting to agitate, to hide under the tables, terrified. however, the girl kept her gaze fixed on the snowball, which seemed to be illuminated in a red so gleaming that she had to close her eyes, dazzled.

the last thing she felt was something enveloping her, like a huge cold but comforting cloak.

it had now been an hour since the little boy’s parents had come to wish him a good night, but sleep did not seem to want to weigh down the young park jimin’s eyelids. no matter how many times he changed positions, morpheus didn’t want him in his arms.

and for good reason: jimin was excited. christmas was now only a few days away and he had already planned his ploy. you see, it was now two years ago, when he was three years old, that the boy had made his decision.

he would catch santa claus.

boys in his class kept saying that santa claus didn’t exist. he didn’t believe them nor the nonsense they were saying. he knew, santa claus existed. every year, on the night of the 24th to the 25th, he would try to stay awake so he could see santa claus and his hood. and he had seen him! he was sure of it! the boy had even seen the great gentleman eat the cookies and drink the glass of milk he had carefully prepared.

last year, though, he had not been fast enough; while the boy had just come down the last step of the stairs, ready to make his presence known, the bearded man had already disappeared in the chimney.

sighing at this memory, jimin rose from his bed, his brown hair dishevelled. fumbling his way along not to wake his parents and little sister, he went down the stairs to get himself something to drink. maybe it would help him sleep? he’d once seen his mom do that.

as he passed through the living room to reach the desired place, a strange vision made him rub his eyes with his fists to make sure what he saw was real.

a little girl who had just appeared in the hearth of his chimney looked at him with eyes as wide as his own.

“who are you?” he asked.

she was dressed strangely. on her snow-white hair, a red bobble hat had been laid without much attention, causing it to fall before her sparkling eyes. her clothes were similar to those that jimin had seen the elves wear in the christmas movies that were on tv. the only difference was that she was not dressed in green but in red.

the stranger blinked several times before shaking her head from right to left. she didn’t understand him.

great.

as he was about to mime his question again, the little girl’s attention turned away from him and settled on the christmas tree, lit in red and gold. moving gently towards it, she touched with her little fingers the decorations that seemed to sparkle to her touch. a childish laugh, which brought snowflakes to appear in the sky, resounded in the room as she pointed to a little santa claus in felt.

“pappa!”

“no, it’s santa claus!” jimin corrected her, unhappy to know that his hero was not known to the young woman.

“min pappa!”

“hey, no! don’t touch that!” he ran towards her and grabbed her arm to remove her as quickly as possible from a drawing she was about to touch. he had put it at the foot of the tree a few days ago.

on the sheet of paper was clumsily drawn a race car that jimin had forgotten to write on his letter to santa claus. He hoped that the old red man could create him one after seeing it. this race car was the gift that mattered the most to jimin, it was out of the question that he let this weird girl approach it.

“se på!” the girl said, pointing to the windows that had just opened. following her gaze, jimin gasped, his eyes now amazed.

a glittering, almost transparent hand made of snow had just appeared in the parks’ lounge. tt wandered around in the air for a few moments, stopping to tickle the girl’s chin with two fingers. the latter, after laughing, cheeks now red with happiness, showed to this magical apparition the drawing of the car. for a few moments, the girl and the hand had a silent conversation that ended with a bright smile from the child.

jimin, who had remained motionless until then, startled when the hand advanced towards him.

“miss Klaus! you’re in a fix, i can tell you! why did you run away like that?! and in korea into the bargain!”

a small man with sky blue skin and pointed ears appeared in turn in the chimney. jimin had no time to understand what was going on that the newcomer was already grabbing the girl’s arm and pulling her to the chimney where they both disappeared in a cloud of red and white glitter.

the hand, which had hidden as if it did not want to be seen by the elf, flew again towards jimin, who, terrified, began to tremble. they remained silent for a long time, before it magically disappeared, leaving behind snowflakes and a race car.

the little boy fainted.

the peaceful atmosphere in the living room had a soporific effect on the couple lying on the couch. the christmas film—full of clichés—that was displayed on the tv screen had long been forgotten, as were the two cups of hot chocolate that no longer gave off smoke. a few snowflakes fell on seoul but seeing them, all the inhabitants knew they would not be there the next day. they didn’t mind, even just seeing snow made them happy. it would always wrap the city with its delicate white coat no matter for how many hours, painting the landscape with the christmas spirit.

jimin struggled against sleep that seemed to approach him a little more with each caress in his hair. he was slumped against his girlfriend’s chest, enjoying this moment of serenity which was discordant from their exalted daily lives. the words they were saying were whispered so as not to disturb the peaceful atmosphere that surrounded them.

“y/n?” a ‘yes, honey?’ was heard in response, urging him to continue while the caresses on his skull became softer. “did i ever tell you that you reminded me of someone i met as a kid?”

“oh, is that right?” the woman asked, her voice muffled by Jimin’s hair in which she had buried her face.

“yes. i think I was five or six at the time… or something like that. i was young enough to believe in santa claus, basically. anyway, one night i went to get a glass of water in the kitchen. i was so tired that i had a hallucination. it was as if i had seen a girl appear in my chimney and she had summoned this weird and magical hand that made me a car. weird, isn’t it? she had white hair just like you, though.”

“hmm…”

“maybe it was a prophetic dream, i knew you were going to be the love of my life.” he laughed at his girlfriend’s cringe expression. “i love you.”

slowly, she gave him a kiss on his cheek, saying these three little words back. her caresses continued until the man’s eyes closed. smiling, she grazed jimin’s cheek with her thumb, translating in this little gesture all the affection she had for him.

her eyes swept away the apartment they shared. on the walls and shelves were scattered memories, photos; all these things traced their history, which had been going on for a year now. in the entrance, on the small table where there was a bowl with keys, behind the pile of mail waiting to be read, was placed a snow globe representing a fireplace decorated with Christmas stockings.

suddenly, the windows of the living room opened, and even though the noise startled her, it did not disrupt jimin’s sleep who was now using her chest as a pillow. a trail of snow dust appeared in the living room, twirling for a few moments around the couple before it put a letter in the woman’s hand. she hurried to open it, reading its content, written in familiar handwriting.

miss y/n klaus,

how are you? personally, i can’t even sleep as your father keeps telling me how much he misses you. everyone here does. seeing each other a month per year is too little according to the villagers.

i know your life in seoul takes up a lot of your free time. however, according to christunix’s council, it was considered judicious for you to return to the village during the week. all you have to do is take your snowball, i won’t be wrong to assume you know how to use it.

without you, it’s a bit of a mess. even if the elves work hard and your drawings are precise, it’s always better when you’re on the field to check in real-time the work that has been done. your father has, as usual, high expectations even if he is no longer in the position. he keeps complaining. you must return as soon as possible or, i assure you, the old elf will get rid of him before you can say ‘christmas’.

after all, what would christunix be without the sixth heir?

p.s. your mother and siblings keep tormenting me for you to introduce them to that boy you talk about in your letters. if you feel like it, bring him back with you. maybe it’s time he finds out what his fiancée’s job is.

kind regards,

juniper.

[sunplncommunication]

Frameless sliding door with cabinets on both sides

With a sliding hanging rail at the top, no rail at the bottom, knob on both sides. with 5mm thickness transperant monitoring window

[rackingsystems]

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[aliciameade]

Baby - Ch. 8

Title: Baby Author: aliciameade Rating: *** M *** Pairing: Stephanie Smothers/Emily Nelson Summary:  That tearful kiss shared between Stephanie and Emily wasn't their first—and it certainly wasn't their last.

(Chapter 1)

Also on AO3

“Hi, Moms! Stephanie here.” Stephanie smiles into one of the cameras set up in her kitchen. “My best friend, Emily, and I are taking a girls’ trip to sunny southern California this week. I grew up on the east coast and have never been west of the big Mississippi, so let me know in the comments what I absolutely must do, see, or take on my trip!”

She switches to Camera 2. “It’s with that in mind that today we’re going to make our own travel toiletry bags! All you need is a yard of fun fabric and a few buttons. You can also use Velcro strips or ribbon, or if you’re feeling really fancy, a zipper. Ready? Okay!”

~ ~

~ ~

Her subscribers—she thinks of them as a family, really—were helpful in their suggestions. She folds and packs an extra cardigan to protect her from the chill that might roll in late in the evening off the water. Briefly, she considers “forgetting” any outer layers at all; the prospect of doing something obscenely romantic with Emily like strolling on the beach and getting chilly and being offered whatever expensive jacket Emily will surely be wearing is more than tempting.

But she sets the sweater on top of the négligée she’s found the perfect occasion for, and what she thinks might be too many pairs of panties but she also is pretty sure she’s going to need them.

Two-and-a-half days alone with Emily in another city with no looming husband and no dear, darling children to be cognizant of?

Yeah, she’s going to need them.

She didn’t ask Emily what she meant by “it” when she’d texted her last night saying, “Pack it.”

She has to bite her lip when she sees a loop of black leather of the harness peeking out from where it’s buried at the bottom of her suitcase.

Her toiletry kit, the one she perfected to use as her example on this week’s vlog, is the last thing to be tossed into her bag. Her heart races as she zips it. She’s minutes from loading Miles and her luggage into her Subaru to drop him—and her car—at Emily’s house.

With one final check that she has everything she thinks she might need in her purse and anything Miles might want while he has his two-night sleepover with Nicky, she shepherds him out of the house, locks up, and leaves.

~ ~

~ ~

She realizes, as she steps into the hired car waiting outside Emily’s home, she has no real idea how they’re getting anywhere. Emily had said they’re taking Dennis Nylon’s private jet, but beyond that, she’s uninformed. She doesn’t know where they’re staying, if they’ll have a rental or a driver in Los Angeles, or even what Emily’s work commitments are while they’re there.

She’s never traveled without an itinerary and there’s something oddly exciting about it.

She slides over to the far side of the back seat and watches Emily take a seat next to her, graceful and dapper as always in what Stephanie surmises is a version of professional travel-casual. Her navy blue suit is tailored but it’s only a two-piece. Simple blue slacks and blazer and a white blouse that’s not even buttoned up all the way, with brown loafers. Even her casual style makes Stephanie feel underdressed when she’d put extra effort into her outfit today. She knew private travel was a luxury and she wanted to fit the part. Her dress is designer, though a full four seasons ago, something from Kate Spade’s 2017 spring collection. She knows Emily probably knows it’s outdated, but she doesn’t comment on it.

“You look nice,” is actually what she says once the driver closes the door and they’re alone in the car for a few seconds before he’s behind the wheel.

“Thank you,” Stephanie replies, feeling a bit like a blushing schoolgirl. Emily can be so hot and cold with her communication and affection, and it manages to catch Stephanie off-guard every time.

Emily’s quiet after that, focused on her phone—texting or emailing, Stephanie supposes—leaving Stephanie to her thoughts. She wants to make conversation, but she’s not sure what’s okay to do or say with someone else in the car. The driver might be someone Emily uses frequently. It might not be okay if he overhears their conversation, even if it remains mundane and platonic about work or kids. She wants to ask what the plan is or even where they’re going.

She knows they’re heading east out of town. It’s growing increasingly industrial and she’s almost uneasy until they’re parking behind a massive warehouse.

She realizes, as she steps out the car, that it’s not a warehouse but a hangar because there’s helicopter parked and waiting in the middle of the wide open pad of asphalt.

“What is happening?” she says with a laugh as she watches Emily round the back of the car until she’s by her side. It’s only a touch of a hand to her back, but it makes Stephanie shiver.

“The plane is in Teterboro.”

Stephanie starts walking, half a step behind Emily because she was too surprised to move quickly. “So we’re taking a private helicopter to a private plane?”

Emily glances at her. The small smile she’s wearing is almost a smirk and it makes Stephanie feel a little childish in her excitement.

“I’ve never been in a helicopter, either,” she says as she follows Emily into the open bay door of the sleek black and white aircraft.

“The jet is nicer.”

Stephanie leaves an empty seat between them, unsure if it would be suspicious if they sat side by side when there was plenty of room in the six-seat cabin for the two of them.

Her decision is affirmed when they’re joined by a stranger, a man in a suit with a briefcase yelling into the Bluetooth earpiece he’s wearing about the manufacturing industry in China. He sits across from Stephanie and though his words aren’t directed at her, they feel like it as he stares through her in his heated conversation.

She turns to look at Emily in horror that they’re going to have to listen to this the entire trip to the airport to find that she’s already being watched. The tiny smirk is a full-on smile now and it makes Stephanie forget about the man as she returns it.

Whatever complaint Stephanie was about to lodge dies on her lips because Emily’s smiling at her in the back of a helicopter. It’s clear the man doesn’t know Emily; he’s talking factories and steel and he’d barely acknowledged their presence when he arrived. So, she decides to see what happens if she slides over to sit in the middle seat right next to Emily instead of leaving it empty.

The only thing that happens is a slight raising of eyebrows as Emily uncrosses her legs so her foot isn’t encroaching on Stephanie’s leg room.

Stephanie buckles her seat belt and when she sits back, she angles herself enough for her elbow to rest against Emily’s. She feels it lift in acknowledgment but the motion isn’t meant to push her away. A playful bump and a shared glance.

“How long is this flight?”

“Ten minutes.”

“That’s it?!”

Emily nods and turns to look out the window as Stephanie feels a roller coaster-like effect on her stomach and she realizes they’re airborne.

It’s too loud to carry on a conversation, not without putting on the comms headsets anyway, so Stephanie remains quiet in her excitement.

~ ~

~ ~

“I feel like Ilsa in Casablanca,” Stephanie finally lets herself say as she and Emily walk across the tarmac from a helicopter to a private plane, its door open and waiting.

Emily glances down at her. “Rick is putting Ilsa on a plane to send her away at the end of Casablanca.”

“I know, but it’s still so romantic and glamorous, walking across the runway ready to get on a waiting plane with someone you—” She catches herself. “With someone.”

Emily doesn’t respond; she steps aside when they get to the steps of the jet, engines already humming. “After you.”

Stephanie’s seen interiors of private planes before—on celebrities’ Instagrams, in movies and the like—but nothing could have prepared her for the reality of stepping into an airplane cabin covered in nothing but white leather and polished wood with gleaming gold (well, probably brass or similar) accents. It was a very, very far cry from the Economy Class on American Airlines that she was accustomed to.

“This is…” She senses Emily waiting behind her and turns around to find her right where she knew she’d be. “Emily, I don’t even know what to say.”

Emily smiles and gestures toward the back of the plane. “Lady’s choice.”

Stephanie yearns to pop up onto her toes and kiss her but the cabin door is still open, crew are milling about doing their final checks and loading their bags, and the cockpit door is also open with the pilots readily visible. They’re not alone, and this is Dennis’s plane and crew. Instead, she claps through a barely contained squeal and spins back around, nearly skipping through the aisle until she decides on the only row that has a pair of seats instead of singles.

She knows Emily might choose to sit alone, but she’s certainly not going to be the reason for it. She sees Emily watching her over the top of the seats and sees her making her way closer until she’s stopped at Stephanie’s row. She glances toward the front of the plane, then nods at the empty chair next to Stephanie.

“Is this seat taken?”

The whole situation already has Stephanie overdosing on endorphins, but Emily teasing? Being humorous? The compliment in the car. The elbow nudge on the helicopter. Stepping aside to allow Stephanie to board first. That pick-up line a second ago. She fights to get her joy under control lest it is off-putting and motions for Emily to sit.

“By all means.”

Emily joins her as she tosses her coat onto the seat across the aisle and though she’s still busy at work on her phone, she seems much less closed off than she had in the car.

“I really don’t know how to thank you for this,” she says as she watches Emily’s slender, strong fingers manipulate her iPhone in a way that shouldn’t make Stephanie jealous.

Emily looks up from her phone, turns toward Stephanie, and leans in and kisses her. It’s soft and brief, but it makes Stephanie tingle all the same. “I think you’ll find a way.” She punctuates the suggestive sentence with one more kiss and then she’s back at her phone and Stephanie realizes they’re already taxiing toward the runway.

She hadn’t even heard the cabin door close or felt the plane start to roll, caught up in her thoughts as she’d been.

And if they’re moving, that means there’s no one on the ground to see them through the windows, and the cockpit door is sealed, which means…

She sets her purse on the floor, not even realizing she was still holding it, turns in her seat and reaches for Emily. She catches her with a hand to the back of her neck to pull her back in. She wants a better kiss, a bigger kiss, one that will leave them both breathless and she smiles into it when Emily doesn’t pull away from her.

She feels Emily’s fingers slide into her hair followed by the heavy clunk of what she knows is Emily’s phone hitting the floor. It makes her stomach flip, but that might be from the plane taking flight, though Stephanie’s pretty sure it’s Emily and not the plane.

Stephanie has half a mind to unbuckle her seat belt and crawl into Emily’s lap but they’re barely off the ground. She doesn’t want to seem too eager or desperate despite not having been together since the morning after Emily spent an unexpected night at her house. She keeps herself in check, hands not straying into PG-13 territory. It’s enough—more than enough, really—to make her happy. Heck, even Emily looking at her with any level of affection, platonic or otherwise, makes her happy.

When she feels Emily’s hand on her waist pulling her closer, but not escalating things more either, she sighs and settles into her seat and against Emily.

There’s something just as arousing (maybe even more so) about hot and heavy making out than jumping right to sex. Perhaps it’s about a mutual agreement that it’s enough, at least for now, to simply be close and kiss. She knows more will come later. She doesn’t know when, but she knows it will only be a matter of hours. They’ll be in Los Angeles by the evening and she knows exactly what she wants for dinner.

~ ~

~ ~

Emily’s phone interrupts their kissing and Stephanie can’t help but smile when Emily groans in annoyance as she pulls away to reach down to retrieve it from the floor and answer it with a very gruff, “What the hell is it now, Dennis?”

She smiles again when Emily lets her continue however she likes while she bosses around her boss, and how Stephanie likes to continue is to make sure she’s familiar with the way every inch of Emily’s neck tastes today.

As happy as she repeatedly tells herself she is to not need more right now, the need is beginning to grow. She lets her hand rest on Emily’s knee and enjoys the way she tilts her head at different angles to encourage Stephanie to continue or move to a new spot.

When it sounds like the phone call is wrapping up and Stephanie is making plans to drag Emily over to the couch to finally get some relief, she hears through the phone what sound like multiple voices speaking at once and she feels Emily sigh.

“This doesn’t warrant a call with the board—”

She seems to get cut off which Stephanie knows is a rarity. She sits back in surprise and watches Emily pinch the bridge of her nose in annoyance.

The subsequent exchange clues Stephanie in to the fact that Emily’s ended up on a conference call with the Nylon Board of Directors. It’s fascinating to watch Emily...not falter per se, but for her place to be checked. Apparently, an entire board couldn’t be fucked in the face. Even Emily wasn’t that powerful.

But speaking of fucking…

Stephanie maintains her air of innocence best she can while her lips continue caressing Emily’s neck. She lets herself run out of skin, kissing to her collar before she nudges it aside to move lower until she’s undoing the next button on Emily’s shirt to expose her collar bones to Stephanie’s lips.

Emily’s reaction isn’t strong, but Stephanie does see her fingers flex where they rest on her lap.

She doesn’t think Emily will actually let her do it. She’s sure she’ll be stopped when she keeps unbuttoning until her shirt is open. She’s sure Emily will politely nudge her away when she leans over to trail her lips over the swells of her breasts. She’s sure Emily will sit back to prevent Stephanie’s wandering hand from undoing her bra under her shirt to push it up and away so she can tease the hardened tips to further attention and not lean forward to make it easier for Stephanie.

That’s the first time she hears Emily react, a kind of a swallowed gasp that she covers with a cough. Stephanie glances up at her and she sees her put her phone on mute before she asks, “Are you going to stop and let me focus on this call?”

“No,” Stephanie says with a smile before returning to her task, one hand on Emily’s breast to guide it back to her mouth while the other moves to Emily’s pants to start working on the pair of buttons there. She struggles for a moment, one-handed, but when they give way she’s filled with a rush of arousal and adrenaline. She glances down to watch herself pull at one side of Emily’s pants to try to split the zipper but it doesn’t part as easily as she expects it to, the expensive material too pliant. She’s about to sit up so she can use both hands when she sees Emily’s hand move from where it sits in her lap to hold the other side.

When Stephanie pulls again, the zipper parts easily and she can see the scalloped edge of light pink satin.

She nicks the firm flesh in her mouth with her teeth and hears a shaky sigh above her. It serves only to encourage her further and she doesn’t hesitate to slip her hand into Emily’s pants. She does sit up for that; she wants to see Emily’s face. She’s as light as she can be, barely grazing over the soft satin beneath her fingertips and she sees the way her eyelashes flutter at Stephanie’s touch.

She’s about to ask if Emily still has the phone on mute when she speaks sharply into the receiver, something about getting a photographer from the New York Post to be conveniently placed at an event to ensure tabloid-esque coverage of another designer’s misstep. Stephanie’s still not sure what the emergency requiring this mid-flight phone call with so many people could be, but she’s sort of grateful for it. It’s giving her a new playground, something different than kids upstairs or a husband on his way home. She waits until Emily’s finished speaking before she leans in to kiss her. It’s a quiet kiss, slow and soft and Stephanie’s able to tease Emily’s tongue without any resistance.

She slides the back of her fingernail down the satin as far as she can reach, then twists her wrist to drag it back up. She feels the soft rise of flesh through the satin and smiles to herself at the sound of Emily’s quick inhale and tilt of her hips.

Her touch is moving down again when Emily turns her head away so she can speak once more; she still sounds confident and in business mode and Stephanie finds it incredibly sexy. She waits until Emily seems to be finished speaking, then guides her with her free hand right back into another kiss as she presses the tiniest bit more firmly. Emily’s hips tilt again and Stephanie knows she’s asking for more.

There’s a lot about this relationship—for lack of a better moniker—Stephanie enjoys, but none more so than the confirmation (or, at this point, the reminder) that Emily enjoys it, too, is aroused by her, is more than happy to sit back on an airplane during a business call and allow Stephanie to touch her.

She’s as light with her tongue as she is her touch and pride rushes through her when she feels Emily shiver. She can’t help herself and slips her fingertips under the satin, eager to feel the effect she’s had so far. She finds slickness and has to stop herself from making some type of cheeky comment. Instead, she catches Emily’s tongue between her lips and sucks on it.

She feels fingers twist into her hair for Emily’s response and Stephanie hums at the tightness of her grip.

Emily pulls away to speak again and this time, Stephanie doesn’t wait idly for her to finish. She leans down to take Emily’s nipple into her mouth again, having to pull against the hold Emily has on her hair but she’s allowed to move without much of a fight. She finds a pattern with her fingers, a slow, gentle circle and above her, she hears Emily hiss a quiet, “Yes,” as her back arches and hips lift.

It’s an unknown how long the phone call may last; it could be over in a minute or an hour. She could touch Emily like this, slowly and lazily to drive her mad with need. Or, she considers when she feels Emily’s legs part further and her hips start moving to match her speed, perhaps the tiniest bit more quickly than Stephanie’s pace, she could see just how professional and in-control Emily is when she really needs to be.

She presses a bit more firmly, pads of her fingers rolling back and forth. She must be hitting a nerve just-so because Emily’s knee keeps bouncing as though in reflex. She smiles against Emily’s breast, amused by it, but she adjusts to make it stop. Instead, she speeds up, pausing now and then to dip her fingers lower and into Emily to feel her and draw more wetness up with her fingers.

It reminds her of their first night together, watching a sexy movie while Emily tried to be defiant as Stephanie teased and massaged her clit until she finally begged for it.

The memory makes her teeth nick Emily’s nipple again and her hips jerk in response. She glances up and though it’s difficult at the angle, she can tell Emily’s eyes are closed and her cheeks are tinted pink.

Her own impatience gets the best of her. She can feel how much Emily wants her and Emily is the only thing in the world Stephanie wants right now. She slides off her seat to the floor and temporarily abandons Emily’s clit, licking her fingers quickly before reaching for the waistband of Emily’s pants to pull them down.

They slide easily, Emily lifting to help, and she doesn’t bother trying to get them over both of Emily’s shoes. One’s enough so she can move between her knees, hands on Emily’s thighs to part them. She can feel Emily’s hand in her hair, combing and pulling, and she doesn’t even look up at her before she does it.

There’s something empowering about that, not looking up for permission she knows she has. It’s erotic in a way she’s still getting used to, to lean in, pull the strip of satin to the side, and taste Emily.

She hears Emily stutter and lose her place in whatever it is she’s saying to the Board and it fills Stephanie with pride. She takes Emily’s swollen clit between her lips before she’s found her place in her sentence and she feels a sharp tug on her hair. It almost feels like a warning or a request to stop but the very next second she’s being pulled in closer.

She hears Emily grind out a frustrated, “Never mind,” instead of ever finishing her thought and Stephanie wonders if she’s ever had to do that before.

Feeling victorious, she glances up to find Emily’s eyes no longer closed; now they’re locked on her so she tightens her lips and pulls back, taking Emily’s flesh with her until it slips from her mouth. “That sounds really important,” she says quietly. “Don’t let me distract you.”

She can tell Emily’s about to respond until she remembers her phone isn’t muted. Instead, Emily pulls her back in and Stephanie’s more than happy to oblige.

They’ve made love many ways during their short affair. Stephanie has loved them all but Emily parting her legs and asking for Stephanie’s mouth—sometimes verbally, sometimes in other ways—is arguably her favorite.

(Okay, it might be tied with being invited to sit on Emily’s face.)

She’s generous with her tongue this time, first taking care of the arousal that’s starting to drip before lapping slowly at Emily’s clit.

She feels Emily’s leg, the one free of pants, lift to rest over her shoulder so Stephanie adjusts, wrapping an arm around her leg and pressing closer. A second later, she hears a quiet hum and feels a vibration and for a moment she’s shocked and excited that Emily has somehow produced a sex toy but when she looks up in curiosity she sees that it’s the seat and not a toy that’s humming as Emily presses a button to make it recline.

“Fuck,” she whispers between strokes of her tongue; it’s even hotter than an unexpected vibrator because Emily’s making herself as comfortable as she can to let Stephanie do as she pleases while Emily suffers through her business call.

She takes a particularly strong swipe and hears Emily’s breath catch. There’s a delay where Stephanie knows there wouldn’t otherwise be between that sound and the moan that finally comes. “Jesus fuck, baby,” follows and Stephanie assumes the phone’s back on mute. Or, at least, she hopes it is for the sake of Emily’s reputation...though the concept that it might not be is titillating, Emily getting too caught up in how Stephanie makes her feel to forget her professionalism and letting a conference room full of executives hear her moaning.

She lets herself believe that to be the case and doubles her efforts as though she’s daring Emily to keep quiet. She’s had to be the one to bite her lip and cover her mouth more than enough times and it’s fun to be on the other end of things for a change.

When she hears Emily’s breath catch, she presses inside, first with her tongue, just because, then with her fingers, firm and sure as they slide easily. She curves them and watches Emily’s hips lift off the seat for a second before they’re pushing closer.

“Then find another venue, Dennis, what the fuck do you want me to do about it?” Emily’s voice is clipped and Stephanie can tell she’s more than impatient to end the call.

It’s the least Stephanie can do to be entertaining Emily, she thinks with a shrug to herself as she fucks Emily slowly, fingers moving in long strokes. She’s rougher and quicker with her tongue; she’s always loved the way Emily reacts when she gets the angle right, that spot that’s always ‘a little to the left’ that makes her toes curl.

She knows she finds it without guidance this time when the heel of Emily’s shoe scratches at her back. It’s digging into her and trying to reel her in closer and she really can’t get any closer so instead, she presses more firmly into that spot with her tongue.

“Fuck, that’s—that’s not my fucking job. That’s why we have Elena. Why isn’t Elena on this call if this is about an event? She’s your events person. Not me. Fuck!”

Stephanie doesn’t know which, if any, of the curses are directed toward her but it doesn’t matter. Emily’s not pulling on her hair anymore. She’s just holding Stephanie there, hips starting to buck out of rhythm.

Stephanie wonders what she should do. Emily’s close; so close Stephanie can taste it. Literally, she thinks with a smile. Should she stop, or back off to let Emily unwind before it’s too late? Or should she keep going and see if Emily will allow her to take her all the way to orgasm and back during her phone call?

“Fuck, don’t stop, baby,” Emily says with a groan to answer Stephanie’s debate.

She hums in response and glances up to see Emily’s eyes locked on her, dark and intense. She looks like she’s being fucked on a private jet, disheveled and half-naked in a white leather seat and Stephanie can’t help herself. She takes her free hand back from where it’s been holding on to Emily to keep her close. She doesn’t need to do that now; Emily will do that on her own. And she reaches under her dress, between her thighs, under her panties to touch herself.

She moans at the much-needed relief and she can see it on Emily’s face that she knows what Stephanie’s doing.

But she doesn’t do anything to stop her.

Instead, she says, “God, I can hear how wet you are.”

The words make Stephanie shiver and all she can do is hum and close her eyes because every ounce of her energy is devoted to other things.

“Hey, hey guys,” Emily barks and it makes Stephanie flinch at the unexpected change in tone. “You need to figure this shit out on your own. I’m going to stay on the call so I know what stupid decisions I’ll have to fix for you tomorrow, but consider me gone.”

She hears the sound of a dozen voices yelling at once as Emily turns on her speakerphone for the call and Stephanie’s genuinely impressed that Emily’s doing exactly what she said she would. She looks up again in time to see her toss her phone into Stephanie’s empty seat, look down at her, and say, “Fuck, you look so good, baby.”

Stephanie winks and feels even sexier in doing so than she had seconds earlier despite everything.

Emily’s louder now, like the nights she spent at Stephanie’s house with Miles at his grandparents’ house. Uninhibited. Uncaring that they could be caught because there’s no one to catch them, no one to interrupt them. They’re thirty-five thousand feet in the air and alone, save for two pilots behind a locked door with much more important things to pay attention to. It makes Stephanie moan, too, no longer concerned with whether or not Emily’s call is muted. Emily’s hand, the one not resting on Stephanie’s head, is on her breast and Stephanie watches the way she plays with her own nipple, memorizing the patterns of touching, twisting, and tugging so she can repeat them later.

It’s with a gasp and a whimper that Emily comes, tense and unmoving for an eternal second until she snaps and her hips buck in a way that makes it almost impossible for Stephanie to keep her tongue on her with any sort of precision, but it doesn’t really matter now.

She groans her appreciation for it; she loves when Emily comes for her like it’s some kind of twisted gift, one that Emily chooses to give her. It’s everything she can do to stop her own orgasm. She yanks her hand away from herself to hold Emily’s thigh to keep from suffocating between them (not that she’d mind…) and feels the tiniest quiver of ecstasy make her clench and her own hips rock forward for friction that isn’t there.

Her reason to wait will be worth it, she reminds herself, as she waits until the body above her is finished twisting in release. Once Emily’s calm again, her fingers starting to comb through Stephanie’s hair, she gets off the floor, makes quick work of slipping her panties off, and moves to straddle Emily’s lap. She takes her hand, the one that’s been in her hair for however long she was on her knees, and guides it between her legs.

Emily’s slow to react and she takes immense pride in that, that she’s still trying to recover. It’s not as though Stephanie needs a massive effort on her part for this anyway. She guides Emily’s fingers into her, sees the way she looks up at her, still dazed but there’s a hint of familiar smirk returning that disappears as soon as Stephanie leans down to kiss her.

She’s moving as soon as their lips touch, rocking and holding Emily’s hand in place firmly against her so she can grind against it as she claims Emily’s mouth with her tongue. She loves when they’re like this, raw and sensual and a bit dirty and she loves when Emily lets her take what she wants when she lets her be in control. She’s pretty sure by now that Emily wants Stephanie to be in control sometimes, that Emily likes when Stephanie does things like tie her up or pin her down. She’s sure Emily likes it as much as Stephanie likes being told to get on her hands and knees to be taken from behind.

It’s a good set-up they’ve got going, she thinks. The give and take, their little games of dominance and submission that haven’t started to challenge Stephanie’s personal boundaries yet, but she thinks they might sometime soon. Maybe while alone together on this trip. She’s kind of in the mood to be tested.

The possibilities and scenarios that assault her imagination are so distracting that it doesn’t even register with her that she’s close until she’s already coming, moaning against Emily’s mouth, lips touching but not really kissing as she feels Emily’s tongue darting in and out, still teasing even as Stephanie starts to come back to herself.

She doesn’t hear the angry, arguing voices on the phone anymore so the call must have ended or maybe Emily hung up, but she’s grateful all she can hear is their heavy breathing and the loud hum of the jet engines carrying them farther and farther away from Emily’s husband.

The thought makes her lips curl into a smile and she kisses Emily again now that she’s of sound mind once more and she lets her hips resume rocking. Not hard, or fast, but enough to be able to feel Emily still inside her. It’s enough to get Emily participating again and Stephanie shivers as Emily’s fingers curl and press into her.

“Was that your way of thanking me?” Emily says with a lazy smile when Stephanie has to pull back to moan.

It takes her a few seconds to rebuild the events of the past couple of hours, their conversations and references, until it clicks. “It’s a start,” she says as suggestively as she can. She knows the impact is probably lessened a bit by the way her eyes keep trying to close and how hard she knows she’s tightening herself around Emily’s fingers, but she doesn’t care much. They can have their verbal tête-à-tête another time when Emily’s not knuckle-deep inside her and when she’s not making Stephanie help her to lift her dress over her head and off so she can pull Stephanie down at a new angle that puts her breast in Emily’s mouth.

It forces Stephanie to shift higher up Emily’s body, but it’s easy with how far back the seat reclines, almost 180º.

What it also allows her, she discovers by accident when she’s balancing herself to work her way up on her knees, is that now she can reach behind herself and find Emily again, even wetter than she’d left her.

It’s not the best angle, and she has to choose between sitting up and touching Emily or bending forward to have her nipples kissed and licked. Her own need wins out for a while, until her nipples are too sensitive to withstand more attention. Then she sits back, sits up nice and straight because even if it’s narcissistic, she knows she looks good in this position and reaches back and into panties she long ago should have stripped from Emily to find her clit, warm and swollen with need as she rides Emily’s fingers.

She feels Emily’s hips lift beneath her and it reminds her of what it was like to have Emily sitting astride her this way and despite the numerous positions they’ve tried with Emily’s strap-on, something as basic as this has yet to happen. She’s allowed Emily to be the one in control if Emily was wearing it which has put Stephanie (very willingly) onto her back, or her hands and knees, or the washing machine.

If it wasn’t packed away in her suitcase stored somewhere on the plane, she’d stop and retrieve it and take care of that oversight right here and now.

But, that will have to wait for another time, maybe tonight at their hotel. The thought makes her hips move more quickly, rolling again and again against the fingers that are inside her. They’re both moving, now, and Emily’s lifting her hips like she’s fucking her with them, and she’s really not, Stephanie’s seated too high, across her stomach, for it to have any effect but it’s probably less about trying to fuck Stephanie and more about the way Stephanie’s fingers are framing and squeezing Emily’s clit as it slides between them with every thrust.

Emily’s free hand finds Stephanie’s left breast and she’s not really doing anything more than holding on, but Stephanie doesn’t mind. She can do all the work for now; she knows Emily will more than return the favor(s).

“Fuck,” she whines, feeling the pleasure starting to coil inside her again. She can’t believe she’s doing this, she never can believe it when it happens, but now it’s even more unbelievable because opening her eyes for a second to look down at Emily, she can see the window next to them and nothing but blue sky and clouds and she’s literally flying.

Emily’s saying something, she can’t tell what though. Her ears are ringing from how hard her heart is beating but she’s nodding as she says it before her eyes slam shut and her head tilts back and her back arches off the seat and Stephanie comes with her.

She almost falls backward because she can’t bend forward without surrendering her ability to touch Emily but an arm around her waist catches her. There’s so much adrenaline and arousal flowing through her veins she wonders how she’s ever supposed to stop this. She wonders how they ever manage to stop, to act like platonic friends around each other, ever. It’s amazing to her that they can ever do anything but do everything they can to make each other feel this way.

A hand glides up her sweat-soaked back and she’s forced to slide backward until she can’t reach Emily anymore, and she’s brought down. Emily wants to kiss her and who is she to deny Emily that? Or anything, for that matter.

She hears herself moan into it, and she’d be embarrassed by how turned on she still is if Emily didn’t chuckle through their kiss knowingly. She’s still stroking Stephanie slowly but she can tell Emily’s working toward reclaiming her hand.

“How long until we land?” she asks before moving to kiss Emily’s neck, lapping at her skin and relishing the taste. She’d broken a sweat, too.

Emily laughs again and it sounds magical to Stephanie. “Save some for tonight, baby.”

“I’m never going to get tired of this,” she admits as she sinks her teeth into Emily’s neck, not hard enough to leave a mark or even inflict much pain; just enough to make Emily gasp because she knows Emily likes when she uses her teeth.

And she does gasp. But it’s followed by a hand on the side of her face, guiding Stephanie away until she’s looking down at Emily, a thumb stroking Stephanie’s cheek. “Hey, we’re good, right?”

Stephanie’s confused by the question. Of course, they’re good. They’ve been “good” since Day One. Did she say too much? Was that too revealing? Too open or honest? After Emily telling her she could get used to lazy Saturday mornings at home with Stephanie, she thought something like feeling insatiable around Emily would be less than problematic.

“Yeah,” she says with a smile that she hopes doesn’t betray her worry. “We’re good.”

“Good,” Emily replies and guides her down into another kiss, this one so soft and gentle it makes Stephanie’s toes curl in a different kind of way. “Let’s get dressed,” she says when they part. “I bet you brought a crossword puzzle book or something, didn’t you?” she adds with a smile.

Stephanie thinks about the book of vacation-themed Mad Libs in her purse; she’d bought it yesterday thinking it could be fun to see how much it would take to get Emily worked up over a story being so ludicrous, but now she feels like she might get teased about it with the way Emily’s asking her.

“Um…”

“I knew it,” Emily says with a grin before starting to sit up with the help of the electronic buzz of her seat, making sure to not topple Stephanie off her lap in doing so. “You’re so fucking cute. Let’s do it together. Let me up so I can use the bathroom?”

Stephanie blinks at her and she imagines she must look a bit owlish; she had expected Emily to mock her but instead, she’s happy and ready to play a game with her. “Sure,” she says happily as she backs off Emily’s lap and onto very unsteady legs. It’s not made any easier by the plane hitting a small patch of turbulence as she does so and she wobbles, Emily catching her with hands to her waist.

Then, as though she couldn’t help herself, Emily’s leaning in and taking Stephanie’s nipple into her mouth again, nothing rough or harsh, just soft warmth and gentle pressure and a tongue swirling around it. It makes Stephanie squeak and brace herself on Emily’s shoulders and she watches her finish before she leans to the right to give the other the exact same treatment.

She feels dazed by the time Emily sits back and not exactly turned on in the way she has been; she’s not desperate for an orgasm or writhing in need, but she feels heady and a bit drunk or maybe high and she wonders if maybe she is. Maybe Emily, especially this Emily who’s gentle and caring and giving, is her drug of choice.

If so, she knows she’s already addicted.

~ ~

~ ~

Chapter 9

[open-server-rack]

How to Maximize Airflow and Cooling Efficiency in Server Racks

Introduction: 

 In the fast-paced digital age, data centers and server rooms are the backbone of modern businesses. As data processing and storage demand increases, so does the need for efficient cooling solutions to prevent equipment overheating and ensure uninterrupted operations. As a leading server rack manufacturers, Netrack Africa understands the importance of optimizing airflow and cooling efficiency in server racks. In this blog, we will explore various strategies and solutions to maximize airflow and cooling efficiency, enhancing the performance and longevity of critical IT infrastructure. 

Organized Cable Management: Proper cable management ensures optimal airflow within server racks. Messy and tangled cables can obstruct the cool air flow, creating hotspots leading to equipment overheating. Organizing cables using cable management accessories, such as cable trays and vertical cable managers, helps maintain a neat and structured layout, allowing cool air to circulate freely through the server racks. 

Hot Aisle/Cold Aisle Configuration: Adopting a hot aisle/cold aisle configuration effectively improves cooling efficiency. In this setup, server racks are arranged in alternating rows, with the front side of one rack facing the front side of another (cold aisle) while the rear side of the racks faces each other (hot aisle). This configuration separates the cool intake air from the hot exhaust air, reducing the chances of recirculation and improving cooling effectiveness. 

Use of Blanking Panels: Blanking panels are essential accessories that fill the empty spaces between equipment in server racks. These panels prevent the escape of cold air from the front of the rack to the hot aisle at the rear. Blanking panels help direct the cold air toward the servers' intakes by reducing air leakage, maximizing cooling efficiency and minimizing energy waste. 

Hot-Swappable Components: Servers and IT equipment with hot-swappable components allow for maintenance and replacement without disrupting the airflow within the rack. Hot-swappable fans and power supplies can be replaced while the server remains operational, reducing downtime and enhancing cooling system resilience. 

Efficient Server Rack Enclosures: Selecting the right server rack enclosures can significantly impact cooling efficiency. Enclosures with perforated doors and side panels facilitate improved airflow, allowing cool air to enter the front of the rack and exhaust hot air through the rear. Netrack Africa offers server rack manufacturers a range of purpose-built enclosures to enhance cooling performance and maintain a stable operating environment for critical IT equipment. 

 Cold Aisle Containment: Cold aisle containment can be an effective solution for data centres with high-density server deployments. Enclosing the cold aisles with containment panels helps direct cool air precisely where needed, preventing air mixing and reducing cooling requirements. Cold aisle containment optimizes cooling efficiency, leading to significant energy savings and improved cooling performance. 

In-Row Cooling Units: In-row cooling units are compact solutions installed between server racks. These units deliver targeted cooling to the equipment, ensuring that cool air directly reaches the servers' intakes. In-row cooling units are ideal for data centers with high-density server deployments, providing efficient and precise cooling to critical IT infrastructure.

Environmental Monitoring and Control: Implementing environmental monitoring and control systems allow data center operators to track temperature, humidity, and airflow levels in real-time. These systems can alert operators to potential cooling issues or deviations from the desired parameters, enabling proactive measures to maintain optimal cooling efficiency.

Conclusion: 

 Maintaining optimal cooling efficiency becomes increasingly critical as data centers and server rooms continue to evolve. By adopting organized cable management, hot aisle/cold aisle configuration, and blanking panels, server rack manufacturers can ensure smooth and efficient airflow within the racks. Investing in purpose-built server rack enclosures and exploring advanced cooling solutions like in-row cooling units and cold aisle containment further enhances cooling efficiency, contributing to energy savings and improved equipment performance. 

Netrack Africa understands the importance of adequate airflow and cooling solutions in critical IT environments. With a range of innovative products designed to support server rack manufacturers, Netrack Africa is committed to helping data centers and businesses achieve the highest cooling efficiency and reliability levels in their operations. 

[shelllong]

Radiant plumbing

#RADIANT PLUMBING INSTALL#

#RADIANT PLUMBING PORTABLE#

Investing in insulation and heaters will help you keep your garage comfortable in the winter, but you should also seal any gaps that let cold drafts blow through. RELATED: So, You Want to… Insulate a Garage Door 4. While the Reach Barrier kit will insulate one standard garage door, garages with oversize doors (or two or more doors) will require additional kits. When selecting the best garage door insulation kit, be sure to measure your doors carefully. And the process isn’t so intimidating for do-it-yourselfers, thanks to kits like Reach Barrier’s Garage Door Insulation Kit, which contain all of the necessary supplies. An insulated garage door can make the space an average of 10 to 12 degrees warmer in winter, even before you crank up any heaters. Insulating the door will help keep the cold outside air from transferring indoors and cooling the workshop. In fact, if you live in a northern climate, it’s not unusual to find frost clinging to the inside of a metal garage door. Often manufactured from thin metal, garage doors are notoriously cold in winter. Insulated and finished walls will help retain heat in the garage, and you’ll save money on heating bills.

#RADIANT PLUMBING INSTALL#

To create an insulated barrier, install fiberglass batt insulation (such as Johns Manville R-19 fiberglass batt insulation ) in each stud space and then finish the interior walls by installing drywall panels, plywood sheets, or oriented strand board (OSB). Insulating a garage is a project that’s easy enough for most homeowners to take on themselves. Without garage insulation, cold air outside will quickly transfer to the inside of the garage and detract from your heating efforts. Many garage walls consist of just the studs, covered on the outside with sheathing and siding. No matter how much power your garage heater packs, you’ll find it difficult to maintain comfortable warmth in your garage if the walls aren’t finished. Finish the walls with fiberglass batt insulation and paneling. As hot water runs through the pipes in the heater, warm air radiates out into the space, keeping things toasty at floor level and beyond. Hydronic baseboard heaters like the Slant/Fin Fine/Line Hydronic Baseboard Heater are hooked up to a home’s boiler. If your feet are still chilly, try supplementing with a baseboard heater placed where you’re most apt to be working-one likely spot is the area beneath your workbench. The only downside to a ceiling-mounted heater is that the inches nearest the floor may remain cold. Most of today’s ceiling-mounted heaters come with a remote control and a thermostat so you can set the temperature you prefer and rely on the shop heater to do the rest. (Be sure to read our review of the Comfort Zone Garage Heater, which is another terrific ceiling-mounted option.) This type of heater is best situated in a corner of the garage, pointed downward at a 45-degree angle to provide the best distribution of warmth. Infrared 10,000-Watt Ceiling-Mounted Garage Heater, making sure that it is adequately sized for the square footage of your garage. If you’re looking for a serious heat source, consider installing a ceiling-mounted forced-air heating unit such as the hardwired Dr. Most of these options, however, aren’t powerful enough to heat an entire garage.

#RADIANT PLUMBING PORTABLE#

Internal applications, then our B2B based Bizapedia Pro API™ might be the answer for you.Visit your local home improvement store in late fall, and you’ll find aisles of portable space heaters, both large and small. If you are looking for something more than a web based search utility and need to automate company and officer searches from within your WHAT'S INCLUDED IN THE ADVANCED SEARCH FORM? Utilize our advanced search form to filter the search results by Company Name, City, State, Postal Code, Filing Jurisdiction, Entity Type, Registered Agent,įile Number, Filing Status, and Business Category. While logged in and authenticated, you will not be asked to solve any complicated Recaptcha V2 challenges. In addition, all pages on Bizapedia will be served to you completely ad freeĪnd you will be granted access to view every profile in its entirety, even if the company chooses to hide the private information on their profile from the general public. Your entire office will be able to use your search subscription.

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9 Popular Uses for Mobile Industrial Shelving Units

Mobility, flexibility, and convenience are critical in today's fast-paced storage operations for keeping up with the rapidly changing demands of operations. Mobile industrial shelving is an excellent solution to many storage problems. Storage space is scarce, whether you're establishing a small stockroom or a multi-warehouse system.

They are an excellent way for any business to control storage costs. They also make the most of the available storage space by making items more easily accessible when they are required in a specific location. Here are 9 popular uses for mobile industrial shelving units :

Small storage facility: Mobile shelving units slide along a track system, allowing you to separate them to access each unit individually. In addition to the shelves being mobile, this also makes your aisle mobile. You only need extra floor space for one aisle, in addition to the space needed for the units themselves.

Retail storage: Many retail stores have limited on-site storage. You may only have one small stockroom for all of your inventory. As a result, storage areas can become crowded that slows productivity. Mobile industrial shelving units can provide you with the additional space you require. This also allows you to add more shelving units to your stockroom.

Storage of archives: Long-term file and paperwork storage can be a problem for offices. You may need to keep records close at hand, even if you are unsure when you will need them, wasting space with cabinets and bookshelves. You can make the best use of your space by using mobile storage units for long-term archival storage. It is possible to locate the items you require in a timely and efficient manner.

Safe storage: One significant advantage of mobile storage is that, if a computer access system is installed, the units are completely secure. To move the units and access the contents, you would need to enter a code. This additional security could be useful when storing medical records, and law firms

Keeping books and files safe: When storing books and small files, it can be difficult to use your space efficiently. Mobile industrial shelving allows for significantly increased storage density. At the same time, you can continue to access individual files or books as needed.

Storage for small equipment: Workspaces that use a variety of equipment or spare parts, such as in manufacturing or repair, are frequently looking for more efficient small storage. Keeping small parts in storage containers on mobile shelving units allows for easy access and efficient space utilization.

Cold Storage: When storing perishable items, you are always constrained by the size of your cold storage area. Mobile shelving units can be an excellent way to increase storage capacity while saving money with a smaller cold storage room.

Clothing storage: When it comes to clothing storage, density is everything. Mobile shelving units are the ideal type of storage for clothing and shoes. Each unit has rails for hanging garments and shelving for folded items or shoes.

Expanding warehouse space: Even if you have a larger warehouse, mobile shelving can be an excellent complement to larger storage units like pallet racking. Mobile units are easily adaptable to meet a variety of requirements.

Top Shelf can assist you in designing the best storage solution for your operation and space. Our in-house department can customize equipment to meet your specific requirements, and the installation team will ensure that your storage equipment is installed safely and correctly. If you are looking for chrome shelving or mobile shelving systems for your storage space, please contact us.