INPUT ARTICLE: Article: Bare wood always needs priming before painting as the primer acts as a sealant. When you are sure that the outside wood has thoroughly dried, use a top quality latex or oil-based primer and apply it to the entire exterior of the house. Latex primer is an inexpensive, all-purpose choice. Bring your final paint sample when purchasing primer. Primers are usually white, but tinted ones are available to match your top coat. Lay down a drop cloth to protect the ground and any plants in the area. Stir the primer well from the bottom of the tin to mix up all the solids that may have separated, and consider using a tray liner for your paint tray. You can use a nylon-polyester brush, roller or an airless paint sprayer to apply the primer. Start by priming the patched filler spots, then work your way down from the top of the outside wall to the bottom. Priming the patched areas first can improve the final paint job. Let the primer sit for 24 hours to ensure it is completely dry. Now that the surface is properly cleaned, prepped and primed, it's time to follow up with a great paint job. A good paint job protects your house like a raincoat. You can use a top quality 100% acrylic latex exterior paint as a topcoat - buy the best quality paint you can afford. Before you begin, mask windows and doors with heavy plastic and once again lay drop cloths on the ground. For primed, bare wood, you will need about one gallon of paint per each 400 square feet. Use a nylon and polyester brush for latex exterior paint or a paint sprayer for a faster job. Always start at the top and work down so that drips are erased as you work. Follow the sun around the house as you are painting. Another coat or two will make your paint job last longer. While it may seem like an extra expense at the time, you will save yourself time and money on future repairs by properly investing in the repair process now. If you can, you should always apply two finish coats, each within two weeks of each other. After you've painted the body of the house, proceed to the trim, using an oil-based paint. Brushwork is best for applying trim tidily. A good paint job will last for 10 to 15 years depending on the elements your house is exposed to.

SUMMARY: Apply a coat of primer to the dry wood. Apply the final topcoat of paint to the wood. Consider applying one or two follow up coats of paint.

INPUT ARTICLE: Article: " When you hear it, raise your backside as far as you comfortably can, while still remaining "coiled", while inhaling sharply. Hold your breath in anticipation, and when you hear the gun, forcibly exhale as you explode off the blocks. You should be aiming for long, powerful strides rather than quick, short ones. This will ensure a long, powerful first stride.

SUMMARY: Listen for "Set. On your first stride, swing your arm straight back, extend your other arm right over your head in an exaggerated fashion, and make sure your lead knee comes right up as far as you can.

INPUT ARTICLE: Article: Starting with the lowest layer of hair, separate a lock of hair 12 inches (2.55 cm) wide. This should be small enough that you can fit the flat iron around it easily, and straighten it in one pass.

SUMMARY: Separate a lock of hair. Finished.

INPUT ARTICLE: Article: Ratios can be reduced and simplified like fractions by removing any common factors of the terms in the ratio. To reduce a ratio, divide all the terms in the ratio by the common factors they share until no common factor exists. However, when doing this, it's important not to lose sight of the original quantities that led to the ratio in the first place. In the classroom example above, 5 girls to 10 boys (5: 10), both sides of the ratio have a factor of 5. Divide both sides by 5 (the greatest common factor) to get 1 girl to 2 boys (or 1: 2). However, we should keep the original quantities in mind, even when using this reduced ratio. There are not 3 total students in the class, but 15. The reduced ratio just compares the relationship between the number of boys and girls. There are 2 boys for every girl, not exactly 2 boys and 1 girl. Some ratios cannot be reduced. For example, 3: 56 cannot be reduced because the two numbers share no common factors - 3 is a prime number, and 56 is not divisible by 3. One common type of problem that employs ratios may involve using ratios to scale up or down the two numbers in proportion to each other. Multiplying or dividing all terms in a ratio by the same number creates a ratio with the same proportions as the original, so, to scale your ratio, multiply or divide through the ratio by the scaling factor. For example, a baker needs to triple the size of a cake recipe. If the normal ratio of flour to sugar is 2 to 1 (2: 1), then both numbers must be increased by a factor of three. The appropriate quantities for the recipe are now 6 cups of flour to 3 cups of sugar (6: 3). The same process can be reversed. If the baker needed only one-half of the normal recipe, both quantities could be multiplied by 1/2 (or divided by two). The result would be 1 cup of flour to 1/2 (0.5) cup of sugar. Another common type of problem that incorporates ratios asks you to find an unknown variable in one ratio, given the other number in that ratio and a second ratio that is equivalent to the first. The principle of cross multiplication makes solving these problems fairly simple. Write each ratio in its fractional form, then set the two ratios equal to each other and cross multiply to solve. For example, let's say we have a small group of students containing 2 boys and 5 girls. If we were to maintain this proportion of boys to girls, how many boys would be in a class that contained 20 girls? To solve, first, let's make two ratios, one with our unknown variables: 2 boys: 5 girls = x boys: 20 girls. If we convert these ratios to their fraction forms, we get 2/5 and x/20. If you cross multiply, you are left with 5x=40, and you can solve by dividing both figures by 5. The final solution is x=8.

SUMMARY:
Reduce a ratio to its simplest form. Use multiplication or division to "scale" ratios. Find unknown variables when given two equivalent ratios.