Ryan McFarland

Today marks my completion of eight years of employment with the City of Petersburg.  I remember those first few days in town so well.  I arrived on the ferry at about 5:15 on a Friday (the 16th of July 1999).  Since the offices were shut down i couldn’t get my keys.  It was me, my red GMC Sonoma, Oliver, and Comet and my kayak, bike, and a few boxes of stuff.  I knew nobody.  I had no place to go (with two cats in a kennel in the back of the truck).   I slept in the back of the truck in the South Harbor parking lot for two nights.  The weather was nice - people were walking all around town and riding bikes past my hideout.  I had to kill two days before being able to settle into my new office.  I called every apartment listed in the newspaper from a pay phone.   Nobody wanted someone with cats.  I eventually moved my tiny RV to Tent City and stayed there for a little over a week - paying for showers by the quarter.  Eventually i found an apartment for $800 a month.  It only cost me about $70 in cleaning supplies to make it worthy of moving into.  I remember that the bag boy at the grocery store remembered me but the checker didn’t.  She still treated me like a “tourist” 3 years later.   That was a pretty lonely time.  Good to get settled into a new town though.

Today the news will spread through town so i may as well post something here.  Mike Tozzo and i have been approved for a credit line to allow us to purchase the inventory and tools of Petersburg Cyclery.  We have a spot downtown picked out and the business will sell and repair bicycles and also sell bike accessories and sporting goods.  I’m going to be the silent and somewhat invisible partner so i like to go by “ninja partner”.  Mike will run the shop and be the mechanic (after he is done at the newspaper) and i’ll be in charge of purchasing, inventory, advertising, invoicing… all the administrative stuff that i can do at night and on weekends.  We think we have figured out a fair way to calculate the salaries and hopefully we’ll manage to turn a profit sooner than the third year.  We still need a name so we can get a business license and all that jazz though.  Any ideas?  We’re going along the lines of Devils Thumb Bikes and sporting goods (where “and sporting goods” is in much smaller letters) but everything from The Bike Shop to Mike’s Bikes is open for consideration.  It would be nice if we could point out that we’ll carry more than just bikes though.  Any name ideas?

Tonight i am MCing a retirement party.  I wondered if i was asked to do it because my last name starts with MC.  Cena said it was because i’m witty, charming, and nice to look at.  So i asked.  Kathy said that she couldn’t say i was those things or it would be sexual harassment.  Teehee!

Since Monday i have been working on the baseball fields. We’re working on finishing up the fencing on the yellow field and would have been done fencing it today but suddenly the concrete we needed to get the foundations for the dugouts on the blue field was available so we got them poured. Tomorrow we’ll get the framing for the foundations of the yellow field’s dugouts completed and ideally finish the fencing too. Then Friday morning we’ll get those foundations poured and probably work on installing bollards to keep vehicles off of the fields. Next week the focus will be construction of the four dugouts.

Petersburg had a record year for the amount of snowfall.  The snow in front of the house is higher than the porch railing where it has slid off the roof.  The pile behind the house is seven feet tall.

High school baseball is supposed to have a home game in less than two weeks and we have $30,000 worth of sand stacked on the senior field to surface the other fields.  Everything is buried under snow though.  We need rain and warm temperatures to melt the snow so that work can resume on the fields.  Looks like we’re going to get some sun finally though.

A patron recently was concerned about the pool chlorine level because they had been swimming and had a yeast infection. It is important for everyone to know that you can not get a yeast infection from pool water and that if you have a yeast infection that swimming is completely safe for you and all other swimmers. When you think about public swimming pools you can start to get squeamish if you think about the body fluids and other substances that are likely present. Snot seems to flow from many noses, people spit, and there is no such thing as a chemical that is added to pools that turns red when someone pees in the pool. But a properly chlorinated (or - “disinfected” since chlorine is not the only sanitizer used in the pool and spa industry) pool will kill most bacteria within just hundredths of a second. The sand filters we use filter to just a few microns.

The city allows employees to “sell” their vacation time. According to yesterday’s pay stub i have enough vacation accrued to cash it out at $4,875. Definitely not what i want to do but nice to know that i have that little “savings account” to draw from when things get really tight. I would much rather spend a few weeks in Central America, a week with my parents when they come up, and have a few days here and there to get things done around the house. Maybe if i just sold off the vacation that accrued between January 1st and April 16th. That has a value of $1,200 and wouldn’t leave my vacation time exhausted.

It’s quite public knowledge that Cena plans on buying Pangea. But there are a few other businesses on the table right now. Just for Kids is also for sale along with the Alaskan Gourmet annex. Northern Lights Restaurant also became available. Joan Mei restaurant has been for sale forever. I just heard that the bike shop is for sale also. Even a part ownership of Kito’s is changing hands. All of this may make it seem like there is a depressed economy in Petersburg. But sales tax revenue to the city was up for this last year. The generation that would operate a business for 30 years has long since retired and people move around and experiment. In a few years when i start to consider my next career move i wonder if i’ll even stay in parks & recreation - or even the public sector. I’ve been dreaming of buying and renovating old homes and buildings.

With winter’s flu season comes a crop of instant hand sanitizers on desktops and counters of businesses. I have one on my desk that i use during almost every phone call. I got to thinking about the things in my office that don’t get cleaned often that would be conduits for bacteria and viruses.

Keyboard - Naturally our contact with computer keyboards will spread germs. Food, hair, skin pieces, and other goodies in there make a nice festering layer just below your hands. What a pain in the butt to clean though. Between compressed air, some sanitizing wipes and a vacuum it seems to clean up pretty well though. Don’t forget the area that your wrists rest.

Mouse - Certainly you’ve seen the sweat and dirt line outlining a finger on someone’s mouse. That can’t be healthy. Clean the area around your mouse too. If you have a cloth covered mouse pad think of finding a replacement that is easier to clean.

Telephone - Clean that handset really well. Get in those crevices of the pieces of plastic that are snapped together. Clean the area where the buttons are and if your phone has one don’t forget about the cord - it’s right in line with your mouth.

Cell phone - Recent research has found cell phones tote more bacteria than a toilet seat or even the bottom of a shoe. I don’t know the best way to clean a phone short of taking it apart as far as possible and disinfecting the pieces.

Chair armrests - Another surface with dozens or even hundreds of contacts a day.

Door knob - Hopefully the person that cleans your building hits the doorknobs of the restrooms and the entry door hardware. If you have an office that doorknob is probably not in the cleaning contract.

Water bottle or coffee cup - I’ve seen some disgusting coffee cups and i’ve let my water bottles get bad enough that i have thrown them out. Wash those things!