Friday Night Window Cleaning Update

Photo of the Week - Washing the Windows on the Seven Seas Mariner.

Call for part-time firefighters: A new recruitment drive has been launched in Shropshire to persuade more people to become part-time firefighters. The service is looking for applications from people in all walks of life to join the team providing essential cover to areas countywide. “We want men and women to support their communities by becoming a retained firefighter,” said Tony Talbot, retained support officer. “We are currently recruiting retained duty staff at various stations throughout the county. We want a wider represented workforce and would particularly like to hear from women and individuals from ethnic minorities. “However if you are over 18 and have a good level of fitness, then we would like to hear from you.” Mr Talbot said recruits must be able to reach their local fire station from home or work within five minutes, have enthusiasm to work in a team environment, and be willing to support and serve their community. Whitchurch window cleaner Keith Robinson has been a part-time firefighter for 25 years. He said he thoroughly enjoyed the role and would advise anyone to consider joining the service.”There are lots of opportunities and it broadens your horizons,” said Keith. “You get to do things that you wouldn’t normally do.”He is now a leading firefighter, and has added first aid training, and qualifying for his HGV licence to his list of achievements with the service. Firefighters receive an annual retainer fee, disturbance and training session fees, and are paid hourly. They are reimbursed for annual leave, which is five weeks after five years service, and get a good remuneration package.

The Prime Minister has paid tribute to a police officer who was fatally stabbed while on duty in Luton, by unveiling a memorial in his honour. Pc Jon Henry, who was 36, died after responding to reports of an attack on a window cleaner on 11 June 2007. Gordon Brown and Pc Henry's widow Mary walked through a police guard of honour to the spot in George Street in the town centre where the officer died. Mr Brown said there was "no man more courageous" than Pc Henry.

No bailout for banks - seize their profits! Would any sane person bail out a bank in order to take control of its debts but not its profits? No. Yet that’s exactly what George Bush, Gordon Brown and governments across the world are currently doing. There was widespread opposition to the $700 billion bailout plan proposed by the US administration. But the reaction of Paul Clancy, a window cleaner for 15 years in Boston’s financial district was rather different. “This thing they’re talking about is only going to make the rich richer,” he said. “Leave them be and they’ll get what they deserve. Nobody helps me if I’m in trouble.” Millions of Americans are seething that the Bush regime, backed by the Democrats, is prepared to hand over $700 billion to rescue the banks.

One of the Orlando, Fla., area's long-time Hispanic-owned businesses is expanding. D&A Building Services Inc., an office and commercial maintenance company based in Longwood, has launched a subsidiary called D&A Communications Services Inc. The subsidiary provides office equipment installation, systems integration, procurement services and wire maintenance for building owners and property managers. The new business will operate from the parent company's headquarters, and Al Sarabasa (pictured), founder and president of D&A Building Services, will be chief executive officer of the subsidiary. Sarabasa said his brother, Carlos Sarabasa, who has more than two decades of experience in information technology, will serve as president of the subsidiary. The family-owned business was founded in Central Florida in 1985 as a window-cleaning business, with two employees. Full-service janitorial was added in 1989, landscaping maintenance was added in 2004, and waterproofing in 2005. The company now generates almost $20 million a year in revenue, and the new line of communication services is forecast to add as much as $1.5 million in its first year of operation.

Observers like Bill Gates believe that by 2025 we could have robots in every home. In labs across Europe, researchers are creating designs that could become the robo-butler of the future. Bill Gates likens the current state of robotics research to the earliest days of personal computing history when he formed the then fledging company Microsoft. Like the 1970s personal computer market, robotics designs and breakthroughs are following one another rapidly, and consumers are beginning to take an interest, too. In Europe, as the rest of the world, there is s surge in robotics research, reflected in part by the European Network of Robotic Research (EURON), an EU-funded network of excellence that completed its work in May 2008. The Quirl is a precursor of the robotic appliance. It looks nothing like a robot that one would imagine. Like the Roomba vacuum robot it is a simple, flat device that moves in a two dimensional world. But it moves vertically, along glass, and cleans the windows as it goes along. It may not look like C3P0, but it indicates just how useful robots could be in the home or office of the future, particularly given the fact that, for example, solar panels work much more effectively when they are clean. The Quirl is truly a breakthrough for the designers, the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in Stuttgart. When they began the quest for a window-cleaning robot, their first design weighed 6.5kg and was A3 in size. But the Quirl is the size of a postcard and weighs an incredible 600g. And it still cleans windows effectively. With Quirls, Roombas and lawn-cutting robots multiplying, there will be a need to organise the mechanical workforce, and the Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems Lab at the Orebro University Sweden is working on an Ecology of Physically Embedded Intelligent Systems (PEIS).

Police raids lead to Hounslow charges: More than half a dozen suspected crooks have been remanded in custody charged with a range of crimes following dawn swoops in Feltham, Hanworth and Isleworth.Officers from Surrey Police arrested twelve people during the raids on Tuesday. They include: - Window cleaner Ben Bentley, 24, from Hanworth, who was charged with conspiracy to burgle.

At a recent visit to the Battle Creek Health System, I noticed a Kalamazoo window cleaning company cleaning the windows of the hospital. I can't understand why they don't give local companies a chance to bid on the job. We have three very qualified window cleaning companies in Battle Creek. They are Sunrise, Gilbert and Cereal City Window Cleaning. Our company supports the local businesses. When I need a new vehicle, I visit the Magnificent Motor Mile, not Kalamazoo, Jackson or other cities. The same applies when I purchase supplies. My employees use BCHS as well as me. I choose not to use Bronson, Borgess nor Oaklawn. I think we, as members of the Battle Creek Area Chamber of Commerce, should work together and support our local businesses and companies. With all of us working together, we keep Battle Creek's economy moving.

Transformers shock revelation!! We meet the animators and learn how big of Transformers geeks they are, which is actually kind of cool to see. They talk about how the complexity level of the robots; Optimus, for example, has 10,108 digital pieces in him; together, all the Transformers were about 60,000 pieces. Michael Bay talks about how animatics are taking the place of storyboards, and how useful they were on this film. They again talk about how much Bay prefers practical work whenever possible and how it adds to the believability. They talk about how they used window washer poles for the heads of the robots so the actors knew where to look, and how tough that is; LaBeouf is given a lot of credit for working well with that.