Window Cleaning Snippets

Steve Little, of Steve's Window Cleaning of Rutland, had the perfect day to clean off the windows at Maplefields in Manchester on a warm spring day Thursday. Click picture to enlarge.

New Services for Float Glass Quality Concerns and Cold-End Processes: Safety Glass Experts International Ltd is widening the range of expert services available. From the beginning of March 2010 company has started offering independent and objective expert services for float glass cold-end production and float quality related projects. The new float glass expert services are targeted for float glass producers and safety glass processors requiring assistance in their daily activities or problem shooting situations. Producing flawless quality float glass requires versatile quality inspection programs. Although efficient qualitycontrol activities defects in float glass are sometimes recognized. These defects can be extrem ely painful for the glass processor. Commonly safety glass processors do not hold required knowhow to inspect and evaluate float glass defects. Newly started or older float glass producers require training to improve and update their production and quality control procedures - This is where Safety Glass Experts comes in. Float Glass production cold end Expert Service’s available:
Safety Glass Processors:
Evaluation and Examination of sub-supplier float glass quality
Evaluation and Examination of suspected float defects causing processing failures
Consulting to develop internal quality requirements and specific Customer Specifications for float glass subsuppliers
Float Glass Processors:
Present state evaluation
Consulting services for qu ality control activity update projects
Training Services for cold end processes

Mr. Lee’s journey to a CrossFit trainer and business owner began as a teenager when his mother bought him a plastic weight set. Always an active child, he took to the weights and continued lifting through high school. He moved to Nantucket after high school and took to body weight workouts like pushups, sit ups, and pull-ups. But eventually exercise started getting monotonous. He moved to Cape Cod, but continued commuting to Nantucket to keep up his window- and power-washing business. He fell out of shape. One day he started having heart palpitations and felt dizzy. He went to the doctor. The experience scared him back into shape. He started training for and com peting in triathlons, which he stuck with for a few years. He took a second job as a trainer in a country club gym, back on Nantucket. Then he was working out with a friend from New York who told him about this new fitness model that some other friends were doing that was taking them “to the next level.” He did some research about CrossFit and decided he wanted to get into it. He took to it, sold his cleaning business on Nantu cket, moved to Mashpee about a year and a half ago and started CrossFit Cape Cod, which is affiliated with the national program. Ms. Lee picked it up, too, and got her certification as a trainer. Mr. Lee’s dedication to CrossFit and exercise is quickly apparent.

In a case expected to hinge on the testimony of doctors, 53-year-old Allen Grabe’s fate will be decided by how the jury answers a two-pronged question. Was he, under state law, “diseased or defective of the mind” in September 2008 when, as authorities allege, he fired nine shots at close range, killing his 13-year-old son as the boy was asleep in his bed? An d was the Pear Park father capable of discerning right from wrong at the time? Jury selection starts Monday in Allen Grabe’s murder trial. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the death of his son, Jacob, an eighth-grader at Grand Mesa Middle School who had been treated for a neurological disorder similar to autism.
Jurors are expected to hear testimony suggesting Allen Grabe, who operated a window-washing business with clients up and down Main Street in Grand Junction and beyond, was under increasing financial stress after the loss of cleaning contracts in the fall of 2008. According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Grabe entered his son’s bedroom the night of Sept. 11, 2008, opened fire, then stopped and told his wife, Jaquette, “I had to kill him because you were ruining him.” Grabe returned to the boy’s room and fired more shots, the affidavit said.

Samurai sword attack nearly killed me: A father has told how he believed he w as going to die when he was brutally attacked by a man wielding a Samurai sword while drinking in a city pub.
Window cleaner Greg Cook (pictured below) suffered three "slice marks" on the top of his head in an assault by "psychotic" Keith Giles (pictured left). Mr Cook grabbed a table to shield himself and other pub customers bravely leapt in to tackle Giles and pin him to the floor. Mr Cook, 45, said, had it not been for the table and the courage of other people in the pub, he would have been killed. He said: "He (Giles) was psychotic. I didn't have time to think then because of the shock of it all but I could have died that day." Detective Constable Adam Suett, who investigated the attack, said Mr Cook was lucky to be alive. He said: "Mr Cook suffered three slice marks to the top of his head. During this completely unprovoked attack, he was hit at least three times with the sword. "He is lucky that the other people in the pub at the time were able to overpower Giles and pin him to the ground until the police arrived. Had they not done that and had he not been able to help protect himself with the table, I think he would have died." The attack happened at the London Midland Railway Recreational Club Association.

Seattle Center may replace Fun Forest with 44,000-square-foot “glass house” & Dale Chihuly exhibit: The Seattle Center has been debating what to do with 68,000 square feet of empty space left after half of the Fun Forest was cleared out back in January. Originally the space was meant to be used to showcase new vendors and temporary projects on a trial basis while the Center searched for mor e permanent ideas to implement into the Century 21 Master Plan, a $570 million, 20-year investment in the revitalization of Seattle Center and in homage of the 1962 World’s Fair that gave the Center its start. However, according to a report by our news partner, the Seattle Times, after receiving project ideas for the space that left the Center “disappointed,” they decided to consider a proposal to build a 44,000-square-foot “glass house” that would house artist Dale Chihuly’s work. Many consider this proposed project an “extraordinary opportunity” for the Center.

Small Business Snapshot: Premier Residential Services.
Hours of operation: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday; Saturday, Sunday and after hours scheduled upon request.
General manager: Susan Lovato
Date founded: 1959.
Description of business: Residential, co mmercial and concierge services. The services include housekeeping, window washing, handyman repairs, home-watch inspections, janitorial cleaning, summer home care and property management.
Number of employees: 65
Projected revenues: $5 million
Cost of startup: “Too many years ago to remember.”
Source of startup financing: Internal.
Did you write a business plan? “Yes, there was an initial business plan; however as times change and opportunities arise, the plan is constantly modified.”
Marketing budget: $18,000.
Recipe for success: “Staff selection, training and performance are the key elements to our success.”
Personal motto or mantra: “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
Where do you seek advice? Key staff associates, current clients and members of our preferred vendor network.

Has anyone seen Scott? He's the tubby man who came to our house on Saturday, offering to clean the windows. Busy fellow. He had a whole team of people in the street. Naturally, I'm not one to be taken in, so I told him to come back in an hour and then forgot about it. There he was again, just before his men were due to reach the Citizen's Advice Bureau on the corner. Having produced the money, I could then only agree that it would be very convenient if he returned in a month's time. If I paid in advance, we wouldn't even need to be in. And so Scott and I walked to the cashpoint together, having what was to me an insightful conversation about the world of a window-cleaning entrepreneur.
Since then, strangely, our windows have not been cleaned. Nor, I suspect, have anyone else's. I've been trying to look on the £80 of which I'm now short as a charitable donation. In an attempt to recoup some of the money, I didn't lash out on a white loaf to make bread sauce that evening, but, instead , used some stale hotcross buns. Many of the greatest cuisines of the world are born out of the peasant need to economise. What chance of my bread sauce becoming a classic?

NAGPUR: In an excellent example of reverse engineering accompanied with innovation, the department of applied physics at Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT) has developed a 'radiation resistant glass or RRG', opening the doors of self reliance for all atomic research centres which use this glass in the hot cell of their reactors.

There just aren’t enough opportunities in life to take full advantage of a window scrim. This handy item, incase you’ve no t come across it before, will give your windows a smear-free finish. It could be a handy implement in a house with three children, lots of windows, several mirrors and a glass panelled kitchen door. The mysteries of the scrim have been revealed to me via a catalogue dropped through the door encouraging me to recall that it’s the season for spring cleaning. Inside the catalogue, there’s a nifty static duster set (do they mean anti-static?) and a purple chenille mitt which might look quite fetching whilst scrubbing away. But, while cleanliness is close to godliness it is also, like beauty, all in the eye of the beholder. The catalogue, full of handy hints to create the image that I am indeed a domestic goddess, makes wonderful bedroom reading. “Darling, do you know you can clean baths with lemon juice?” is a comment sure to prevent insomnia.

Angler catches second perch over the magical 5lb barrier: A low-resistance set-up was key to Clive Logsdon’s capture of this enormous 5lb 1oz perch from record-holding venue Stream Valley Lakes. Steering clear of more conventional baits such as maggots and worms, the window cleaner from Kent offered a bright red legered king prawn that had been soaked in Dynamite Baits Predator Plus liquid to tempt his prize. Click picture to enlarge.

Bikers set for fuel protests: Bikers are planning their biggest-ever motorway protest against the increasing cost of fuel. Organisers want thousands of drivers to join a go-slow convoy along the M62. They are aiming to beat the turn-out two years ago when more than 1,500 bikers joined the first protest, causing huge delays to traffic. More than 400 also joined last year's ride held in July. Protest organiser 'Maverick' said this time they were turning out on a Saturday rather than a weekday, to minimise disruption. “A lot of us are self-employed so every penny makes a difference. Prices are slowly creeping back up again, while a barrel of crude oil is a third of the price cheaper than a year ago.”
Riders will meet at 9am on May 1 at Hartshead Moor Services before joining a second convoy at Birch Services. They plan to take up all lanes at speeds no greater than 25mph. The AA has said petrol prices could hit a record high of 128p per litre just after Easter with a wholesale rise and fuel duty increase set to hit motorists over the next few weeks. Maverick added: “We're doing it on a shopping day so people from all walks of life can come and air their grievances. “Prices are still so high and are affecting everyone. One of our lads is a self-employed window cleaner and for someone like him making a living is very difficult.

A former taxi driver who set up a window cleaning business has received funding after winning a Dragons’ Denstyle event. Paul Wallace won £2,500 for his business Wallace and Sons Cleaning Services, after taking part in the City of Sunderland College’s annual entrepreneurial event. Mr Wallace, who is in the final year of an HND business and management course at East Durham College, established his business in August, and will take it full time from May. He will use his prize money to buy equipment. Mr Wallace said: “I really enjoyed being a taxi driver, but the long and often unsociable hours meant I spent a lot of time away from home. Running my own business allows me to be more flexible and I’m getting a great sense of achievement. “I’m thrilled to have won the contest. “The new equipment is environmentally- friendly, so I won’t be using detergents or harsh chemicals.”

Faye Bossman, 54, died Monday, March 15, 2010, at the Iowa River Hospice House in Marshalltown, Iowa, after a 9-month battle with appendiceal cancer. Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m., Monday, March 22, at the Center Street Baptist Church in Marshalltown. Burial will follow in the Woodlawn Cemetery at Toledo. In 1990, Faye and her husband began home schooling their three daughters, subsequently being blessed with the opportunity to provide 13 years of Christ centered instruction. Faye and her husband were also involved in a number of home business ventures, including custom woodworking and a window washing service.