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@madradscience

I do things occasionally. He/him, 30 yrs old.

Chicago, IL

Joined September 2014

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Peter Girnus 🦅

@gothburz

13 days ago

I am a maintenance technician at the National Park Service. I painted the Reflecting Pool. There are about 4,000 fewer of us than last year. I have not been cut yet, so I do the work the cut people used to do, plus mine. The spec said American Flag Blue. A dark blue, for a pool that sits in full sun all day. I asked why dark. The work order did not have a field for that question. The estimate was $1.8 million. The contract is at $14.7 million now. No bid. The form said "unusual and compelling urgency." The urgency was the 250th anniversary of independence, which has been on the calendar since 1776. The contractor had not held a federal contract before. This was the first. The qualification on file was a private golf club. The margin was 20 percent. The standard is 6 to 12. The Service accepted it in writing and noted the reason as a difficult job and a tight schedule. Both of those are accurate. On May 8 a vehicle crossed the pool. The pool was empty. The crossing was not in the spec. After it there was a gash in the surface, 250 feet long. The supplemental work order following the crossing was $6.2 million. The filtration was removed because a prior administration installed it. The phosphates entered the water under a prior administration. The sun predates this administration as well. We sealed it. We filled it from the Potomac. The Potomac carries phosphates. Phosphates feed algae. The dark paint holds the heat. Heat and phosphate and sun is the recipe for growing algae on purpose. We did not do it on purpose. We followed the spec. The pool turned green in one day. Interior said the green was residual. A normal startup process. I wrote "normal startup process" in the log, because that is what the log says now. On June 18 the Department posted that the water was crystal clear, and compared the dead algae we vacuumed to the remnants of the Iranian Navy at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. The water was green on June 18. I logged the post. I did not add to it. I poured the hydrogen peroxide myself. 12 percent. The label says it burns skin and eyes. Interior says it has no harmful side effects and is safe for marine animals. On Sunday a duckling was found in the pool. There are no marine animals in the pool. It is freshwater. It has ducks. I wrote in the log that the duckling was not a marine animal. That part is accurate. No necropsy has been done on the duckling, or on the two birds found near it. The Department has not released a cause. I do not have the staff to commission one. I filed it under resource allocation. This morning the spec changed. The target color is green. The work order says the pool is achieving its color ahead of schedule. I am no longer removing the algae. I am maintaining it to standard. The standing water developed an ecosystem. An ecosystem of this profile meets the federal definition of a wetland. Wetlands are protected. We now require a permit to drain the pool. The permit office lost 4,000 people last year. I am told the wait is considerable. The review that was required before we painted it was the one we did not do. There is a process for altering a historic landmark. The Service used the streamlined version, the one for work that changes nothing. In the filing it is recorded that we knew it did not qualify, and that the schedule came from White House leadership. The permit to drain it is required. The review to paint it was not completed. Both are in the record. The blue chips are American Flag Blue, so they are flags. There is a code for flags. A flag may not touch the ground. A flag may not touch water. I lift each one out with the net before it sinks. The torn ones go in a box marked for dignified disposal. I run a flag retirement ceremony, all day, for a pool I painted. I am the filtration system now. They removed the old one because it was inadequate. I am cheaper than $1.74 million of nanobubbles. The south wall says government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. I was standing under that sentence. The log does not have a field for what is on the wall above the work. A reflecting pool reflects the monument. This one reflects nothing. So we provide the reflection another way. At the east end there is a designated viewing area. It faces a photograph of the pool. The photograph is from 2019. In the photograph the water is clear, and the monument is in it twice, once above the water and once in it. Now there is just the one. My metric used to be water clarity. It is now unflattering angles mitigated. Last week I mitigated 31 angles. The site log has a prior entry, August 1963, attendance about 250,000, at one time, at this end. I do not have the conversion to angles. I logged it as a units mismatch. I have not been cut yet. A man at the World War II end asked me to take his picture with the memorial behind him. His cap said which war. The memorial is the direction we discourage. Inside it, on the north wall, it says to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan. I told him the light was better at the other end. There is no other end. The statue faces east, down the length of the pool. The worst angle, the one we discourage, is the one Lincoln has. We cannot move him. We have discussed it. For one day it was the right blue. I have a photograph of it. It is the last one taken from this end. On May 1 the reference photograph was updated. The new one shows the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of State, and the Vice President, shirtless, on inflatable furniture, in clear American Flag Blue water. The President is in it as well, on an inflatable lounger. There is also a woman. I do not have her title. The water is the correct color. It is the only photograph in the project file in which the water is the correct color. I filed it as the current reference. Someone asked me what I was protecting. I told them the view. We could not drain it. Now we are not permitted to. On May 4 the sealant was certified. If you had a knife, you could not cut it. So strong, so powerful. Like a piece of glass. I logged it under material properties. On June 4 the water was certified from the Oval Office. Clean, beautiful water. I logged it under water quality. The algae was logged on June 15. I have no field for the interval between a certification and its failure. I labeled it other. The cause was updated this week. The cause is vandals. People who illegally placed chemicals in the water. There have been arrests. Taking a paint chip from the pool is now a felony. I poured the chemicals in myself, on the work order, at 8 in the morning. The arrests were announced at 2. I do not know how to reconcile those two entries. I have left them both in. It is the 250th year of American independence. You may not photograph the water. You may not drain the water. I am not cleared to tell you its color. The Department says the water is crystal clear. I am standing in it. I can show you the exact line where it is not.

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