Picture of the Day + Window Cleaning News

Picture of the day, titled "A hopeless job to do......" Click to enlarge.

Counting the cost of Bath's gulls: A wildlife expert is asking people in Bath to help him compile evidence of the impact of gulls on the city. Researcher Peter Rock will be applying through Bristol University for a grant to research the breeding habits of the birds in the hope of uncovering possible solutions to the myriad problems they cause. Mr Rock conducts annual counts of the urban gull populations in Bath, Bristol, and Gloucester and all three cities would be involved in the three-year research project.
Now he is asking businesses and individuals to tell him about the impact of gulls on their operations and lives as he presents his case for research funding to the Natural Environment Research Council. He said that many of the methods so far used to control the birds - such as nets, spikes, wires and even plastic owls - had had "no effect at all on populations." He added: "Actually, these so-called solutions have been little more than guesswork. And it seems that every new idea costs more than the last. "The question is this: when have we ever solved any problems in any sphere without first understanding exactly what we're dealing with? The pest control industry has had 20 years to tackle the urban gull issue and it has already cost plenty. It will continue to do so until we start to take urban gulls more seriously. It's high time, then, that we got the science done."
He said the kind of research he was proposing had never been done before and would involve satellite technology to track the birds. Mr Rock said that the best techniques for sorting out the problem would emerge from the research: "The birds will show us the way forward." He added: "The bottom line is that without the research there will be no solutions, local economies will continue to suffer and for those whose experience of urban gulls has been poor, it will get worse."
He wants to look at the options so far tried - from egg oiling to spikes - and the costs people have incurred, as well as the volume of repairs, maintenance and cleaning local people and organisations have been involved in.
Mr Rock is also keen to hear from tourist businesses about the impact of gulls on their customers, from city centre residents about sleep disruption and from people forced to spend money on car, window or dry cleaning. All information will be kept confidential and should be emailed to pete.rock@blueyonder.co.uk

Please keep pants on....found on the internet.

Windows of opportunity: Local businessman Steve Burbidge thought he'd moved to Cornwall to take things a little slower but it hasn't worked out quite how he'd planned! He'd run a successful cleaning business in the South East for 10 years, but about six months ago, following a family holiday, his wife decided that they were moving here. The London business was doing well, but after a few months, Steve began to feel the need to do something more, and started doing a bit of window cleaning for friends. It just snowballed from there, and six months on, he has 60 employees across Cornwall, working in a variety of roles from telesales and canvassing to cleaning. Now Steve and Jobcentre Plus are working together to recruit a further 20 staff at a recruitment and information event tomorrow, from 10am to 1pm at Truro Jobcentre. If you would like to know more about vacancies, then contact Neil on 01872 355123 or Steve on 07530 207493,

What To Expect From Your Window Cleaning Contractor: How good is your window cleaner? Here are some ideas on what you should be expecting. Much will depend of course on the nature of your building and other constraints you are under financially. Building useage can also play a large part in the extent to which you need your contractor to perform. Are all aspects of their business able to provide you with the information you need, when you need it? Is that communication at the standard you would hope for? Does their publicity information tell you clearly and professionally what you need to know? Are their proposals comprehensive? A really thorough proposal is a sign of a well-organised business. Is their invoicing detailed, timely and accurate? When you contact them, do they answer promptly and do they resolve your query quickly? Do they email you an attendance sheet to confirm that the work has been done?
Do they have a Health & Safety policy? What evidence is there that the policy is adhered to? How do management check that it is being adhered to? What action do they take when there are problems? What is their accident record? What standards do they expect from their own staff? When cleaning internally, you should expect their staff to be trustworthy, smart, conscientious, non-intrusive, ask before they move anything, remove shoes where appropriate, knock on doors before entering, be respectful, polite and friendly without distracting staff who are working and finally, clean and tidy up when finished
It is not unreasonable for you to expect your window cleaners to turn up on time! Inevitably, occasionally delays do occur, but when they do a phone call to warn whoever is expecting them is the least that should happen. When you select a window cleaning company, you want someone you can rely on. To give you the confidence you need, the company should be prepared to offer you guarantees. You should never receive an invoice unless they are completely satisfied that the job has been completed to the standards agreed. If you are not happy with any part of the work carried out, they should revisit the site and put it right within 48 hours of being notified.
What is their staffing like? Each staff member should have been trained and certificated to the relevant standards. There should be a training record available for you to see. You should establish whether staff undergo security checks and what the length of service of all staff are. The longer they have been employed, generally the more secure and well-run the company is. How many of the staff are full time and how many are on contract or subcontractors? If you are The Buyer for arranging commercial window cleaning make sure you read Marcus P Weeks’ very good free guide called ‘Everything you need to know about buying commercial window cleaner services’ or go to the MPW website.

The mechanics of robotic success: BEIJING -A rickshaw pulled by a robot wearing a cowboy hat and sporting a dandy plastic moustache jerks into life and then clicks and whirrs its way across a component-strewn courtyard. For many years the man controlling the machine, Wu Yulu, was seen as the village idiot, a crackpot inventor of robots who would do anything to avoid the farm work he was supposed to do. “This path has cost me a lot. At first everyone thought I was mad. I’m a farmer, I should do farm work,” he says. But Mr Wu, 46, is having the last laugh. His amateur robotics earned him the title “China’s Cleverest Farmer” on a popular TV show in 2004 and now the contracts are rolling in from companies keen to exploit his peculiar genius.
“Dajia hao [hello everybody],” a metallic voice says as the rickshaw driver lurches up and down. “I am a robot and my father is Mr Wu,” the man-machine continues as it makes its way through the inventor’s courtyard. The area is littered with automatons made out of scrap metal and what look like watch parts and dolls’ heads to which Mr Wu adds liberal doses of genius and love. Among the robots he has built are machines for making tea, for lighting cigarettes, even for playing the traditional Chinese erhu, a type of violin. He is now building a window-cleaning device for company based in the capital Beijing.
Once viewed as a bit of a madman, Mr Wu is now revered as a “teacher” by visiting university students from the city. His brother has even taken over the family’s farming duties to allow Mr Wu to concentrate on his inventions. “I stuck with it and when I won my prize of 10,000 yuan (Dh5,376) they all changed their minds,” Mr Wu says. “They realised I could make money with this.” Mr Wu has made more than 30 robots, from one-legged ones to those with two, four and even 20 legs. “Some can jump, some can clean windows and some can climb the walls. Every one is different,” he says in a tone which could only be described as loving. Climbing aboard one of his later walking machines – basically a car seat atop six robot legs – he says: “I do all of this just for fun. I only went to primary school, I have no education and I’m a farmer.
Many people visit him at his home which is in a village where everyone has the same surname.
College students visit him to seek inspiration. “They call me laoshi (teacher). They want to learn skills,” he says. The corner of the room is decorated with the various awards and prizes he has won, including the Smartest Farmer award. “All my inventions are called ‘Wu’ and then a number. This is ‘Wu 25’,” he says, as a purple-haired robot, whose body looks like a petrol can, approaches. In fact, many of Mr Wu’s robots exist solely to show different ways of walking. “This machine is straightforward, a fanning machine I made when I was wooing my wife. In hot weather it keeps her cool,” says Mr Wu, as a four-legged machine begins to frantically wave a plastic fan, sending oil-scented air in my direction. The next mechanical marvel, “Wu 22”, is a jumping robot which leaps like a Meccano gymnast. Its head is made from a ping-pong ball and gives it a sinister edge, making it look something like one of the evil mutant toys in the animated film Toy Story 2.
Indeed, Mr Wu’s machines have inflicted injury on their creator. Over the years he has been treated in hospital several times after being hit by flying spare parts and his obsession with robots has alienated him from his children. But his wife, Dong Shuyan, has stood by him. As she climbs aboard the rickshaw for a jaunt across the courtyard, she says: “It’s been hard to accept. But he’s done good.”

“Law of Window Cleaning: It's on the other side” - I'm taking out the back door screen today and admitting defeat. Putting in the storm door means I have recognized the end of summer. The house is quite chilly in the morning and leaving the door open for Gracie to come and go is just too much. I remember it was around this time my dad would replace the screens with storm windows. He'd drag the storms out of the cellar, sit outside on the front steps and clean every one of them until they met his approval. He always used rags to clean his windows. Most times they were old t-shirts. Next, he'd take down all the screens. In those days putting up the storms wasn't ever easy. Each was placed over a window in a put slot B into slot A process, and it took both hands. Slot A was just above the windows and slot B was at the top of the storms. The storm windows had to fit exactly. It got tricky for the second floor when my dad had to haul the storm windows one by one up a ladder then attach each to a second story window. We always feared for his life. He always cursed. Storm windows got easier, but they were always my dad's job. He still cleaned every one of them and he still used a rag. I swear it was the same t-shirt year after year.

Smith Field shows grass-roots power: When the imminent closure of Smith Field made news more than six years ago, pilots and others rallied to its defense and ultimately saved the small north-side airport from extinction. Next week's scheduled temporary shutdown for more than $1 million in runway repairs isn't nearly as noteworthy, except for one thing: It offers a timely reminder of how powerful ordinarily quiet people can be when they decide to fight for a cause. But those what-ifs should not obscure what SAFE members and others accomplished - a grass-roots effort being duplicated on a national scale today in various tea parties and town-hall meetings organized by people who object to what government is doing.
“We're very happy. What happened is probably better than we could have hoped for,” said DeWald, a pilot and owner of Real Clean, a window-cleaning business. But both O'Donnell and DeWald say the success of the “Save Smith Field” movement indicates a potential shortcoming of grass-roots politics, as well: People who get involved for the wrong reasons may not stay involved once the battle is over. Some people who supposedly wanted to place their planes at Smith Field in an apparent effort to prove its viability never followed through after its survival was assured, O'Donnell said. “Sometimes people are just looking for excitement and a good cause,” added DeWald.

Building blitz finds dozens of dole cheats and lethal lorries: More than 40 people were caught working on building sites while claiming unemployment benefits during a crackdown on benefit cheats and bogus workmen in the Lothians. Officers swooped on dozens of small construction sites alongside investigators from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) in a string of operations. The clampdown also saw 37 vans or flat-bed lorries used by tradesmen taken off the roads after they were ruled too dangerous to be driven. As well as finding benefit cheats and unsafe work vehicles in West Lothian, Operation Flush was aimed at catching bogus workmen ripping off vulnerable people through cold-calling victims to sell unwanted services, or carry out shoddy or unnecessary work at inflated prices. Officers put up posters and distributed leaflets to legitimate tradesmen asking for intelligence about unscrupulous operators, and said they were given a number of tip-offs. Sergeant Jamie Hood, from Broxburn police station, said: "We focused on small building sites, like work being done on private houses. They usually gave the same excuses, such as they were not being paid and only helping out a friend. Officers also caught three people behind the wheel of work vehicles without driving licences, while three were not insured. Operation Flush began with two one-day initiatives in January, followed by two four-day operations in mid-June and the end of last month. Officers were joined during Operation Flush by officials from HM Customs & Excise, who caught three workmen illegally using red diesel in their vehicles. Red diesel is sold at a cheaper rate and is only permitted for use in agriculture. Aside from the builders, five window cleaners were caught working while claiming benefits and without council certificates.

Robert E. McGill Jr., passed away at his home in Destin, Florida September 20, 2009, several weeks after celebrating his 88th birthday. Robert grew up in Alexandria during the depression years. After the war, he attended Louisiana State University where he studied chemistry and physics. He remained a loyal "Tiger fan" to the end. He started "Baton Rouge Window Cleaning Company" while at LSU, and moved into the real estate business in the 1950's. Among his notable business achievements in Baton Rouge are numerous residential subdivisions, including Plantation Trace, as well as, several commercial projects including Cortana Mall in 1967.