Four Window Cleaning Stories For Saturday

Ghost Bikes: The story begins two years ago with a Melbourne cycle fanatic called John Gould. He had heard about the new phenomenon of ghost bikes - old bicycles stripped and sprayed white then put at the site of a cyclist's death as a roadside memorial. They were spreading through American and European cities and mapped, like all good viral movements, online. He found most were installed by cycle activists as a political statement without asking permission of the grieving family or the local road authorities. It was Sunday the 13th. Gould was riding with his best mate Russell Myers in a group of 20. They were coming fast down a popular bike route on Two Bays Road in Mount Eliza. Myers, 44, hit gravel and slid into an oncoming truck. "It was plain right away he was dead,'' says Gould. ''But it was a pure accident."
Russell Myers' ashes had already been spread on Black Rock beach by his partner Jo, who asked that her surname not be used. They were due to be married. He had a window-cleaning business but had just finished a carpentry apprenticeship, as a 44-year-old, when he died. As part of her mourning, she began to visit the ghost bike on the 13th of every month. She has other ways of remembering him - and other places she goes - but sees the bike as ''symbolic''. ''He would not have wanted people to go to a cemetery,'' she says. ''This has become his burial site.'' But, she says, it is also a warning to bike riders and drivers about road safety with ''the added reality factor that, yes, there was a life lost''. She hopes it will be a ''central place where all who knew Russ can go to pay their respects''. Pictured - Jo and her son Ryan at the ghost bike site on Mount Eliza Road for Russell Myers.

Steven flags up World Cup fever: Flags of St George are fluttering proudly from hundreds of homes as World Cup fever grips the town. But football mad Steven Morrow has taken things one step further...by turning his home into an England supporter’s shrine. The 39-year-old, who featured in the Star five years ago when he underwent a kidney transplant, took more than two hours to decorate his semi-detached house on Green Leach Lane, Haresfinch. He even got the window cleaner to give him a lift assembling the red and white tribute. The father-of-one, a former St Helens Town footballer, admitted he has been pushing his luck with wife Lynne, 37, because of the sheer size of the decorations. Lynne, who hails from Newcastle, wasn’t pleased when she came home to find she couldn’t even see out of the windows due to the enormous flag.



By day, Greg Trine is an unassuming, hardworking window cleaner, patrolling buildings in and around Ventura in beat-up jeans and work boots, using a Squeegee and soapy water to stamp out crime errr grime. But when a call comes in from a local elementary school looking for a guest speaker, Trine pulls on a clean shirt, hops into his silver Toyota Tacoma and races to the rescue. No, kids don’t care that he’s a window washer. They care that he’s the creator and author of “Melvin Beederman, Superhero,” a popular children’s book series about a young, pretzel-munching, root beer-quaffing crime fighter with a cape and a cool sidekick named Candace. The eighth book in the series, “Invasion from Planet Dork,” comes out Tuesday via New York’s Henry Holt and Co. Greg Trine, a Ventura window washer who moonlights as a children's book author, has written five "Melvin Beederman: Superhero" books. The fifth and final one, second from left, is due out Tuesday.
“Greg is like a superhero with a secret identity to me,” said artist Rhode Montijo, who has illustrated the series since its debut in May 2006. “He’s mild-mannered in person, very soft-spoken and humble, but when he gets in front of the kids at school visits, it’s almost like his alter ego comes out and he’s busting the students up laughing. He’s got everything from evil-laugh contests he does with the kids to live student re-enactments from a chapter in the book.” Trine, who started Buff Brothers Window Cleaning in 1984 with a college buddy who left the business after a year, said he strives to keep his books simple, fast-paced and fun. “In general, stories that have a moral behind them or as the motive for telling them make for bad writing,” Trine said. “There’s plenty to learn from a struggling superhero who is at his best when thinking of others, but that isn’t something I try to force.”



BOK Center gets glass wall cleaned: Arena's iconic glass wall is getting a much-needed cleaning - It turns out that you can polish a jewel with a dab of dishwashing soap. At least that's what crews from Budget Glass Service are using, along with water and ammonia, to clean the iconic glass wall at the BOK Center. It's the first cleaning of the wall since just before the downtown arena opened in September 2008. "When you go upstairs and you look into the glass and you see dirt, it's time," said Willie Williams, senior operations manager for the BOK Center.

The six-member cleaning crew began work Tuesday and is expected to take a month to finish the job. Williams said window cleaners started at the grand lobby along Denver Avenue and are working their way west around the outside of the building. When that's done, they'll do the inside of the windows. "We just wanted them to start here first so that way it gives the community a good appearance and lets people know we are maintaining the facility for them," Williams said.
Maintaining the BOK Center has been a challenge because it is so big, he said. "This is a beast," he said. It's also a beauty, of course, in great part because of the iconic wall.

The signature feature of the arena — designed by famed architect Cesar Pelli — includes 1,600 panels that, when combined, stretch 600 feet in length and reach 103 feet from the ground. Trent Ray (pictured) is one of the window cleaners using a pulley system to methodically work his way from the top of the wall to the bottom, one window at a time. On Thursday, Ray sat down in his "chair" — a wooden plank covered with carpet — attached to a pulley and dipped a handleless, soft-bristled broom into an orange bucket full of water, Dawn dishwashing soap and ammonia. "It gets it pretty clean," he said. There is no going up the glass wall — once on the ground, crew members take the elevator back up to the top of the building. "We usually try to do five drops a day per man," Ray said.

The 36-year-old Tulsan has been cleaning windows for only eight months. The BOK Center is the tallest structure he's ever worked on. Yet he seemed unfazed. "You're tied back to the building one or two times," he said, "so if your first rope goes, you have your safety line." Budget Glass Service is being paid $35,000 to clean the glass wall, Williams said. Last year, the company was hired to remove markings that had developed on the arena's stainless steel panels. The markings — located primarily on the west, east and north sides of the building — formed when dust and other pollutants settled on silicone caulking that was bleeding from the windows. John Bolton, the BOK Center's general manager, said testing on a new sealant that would be placed over the existing sealant is under way. "We think it's made a huge difference," he said, but he cautioned that the testing process isn't finished.