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Plug in solar

What a great idea.  Instead of the prohibitive (for most) (or for renters) $20,000 solar installation on the roof, just buy a little plug in system.  Panels, micro-inverter, wall outlet.  Set up the panels and inverter in your yard, plug them into a wall outlet, and provide a little power to your house.  Brilliant!

Simple systems only cost a thousand dollars or two, maybe as much as three thousand depending on capacity.  Here is one on Amazon:

Here is a different one:

They don’t provide all the power you need, maybe only 10% based on 10,000 kWh per year usage for an average American home, maybe providing 20% for an apartment, but hey, it’s something if reducing fossil fuel seems like a good idea.  Some come with storage batteries so if you produce more electricity than you use during the day, you can store it and not have to feed the excess into the utility grid during the day, then buy it back at night.

I’ve read that plug in solar systems are popular in Europe.  They call them Balcony Solar.

Plug in solar hasn’t caught on here in the U.S. yet, because there are safety and permitting issues.  That’s what Google says anyway.  A patchwork of City, county, state and federal regulations.  Each local utility company has its own requirements.  It’s not that simple.  Tantalizing though for a situation like ours where the roof isn’t constructed to hold the weight of rooftop solar, so we’re left out of that loop.  And for a renter, who may not have access to a roof, or know how long they are going to be staying, these systems are portable.  Decide to move?  Pack it up and take it with you.

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How we Bronco

It’s not the game on the television.  That one’s on mute.  Today we got the Sirus XM radio Bronco broadcast to link to Alexa in the living room.  That’s Alexa on the TV tray.

We got what we wanted, we listened to the Broncos game in real time, but sadly their undefeated season has come to an end.

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Football

We watch football.

Sometimes, as I’m watching football, I’m impressed by how big the game has gotten.  Then I marvel at all the ancillary connections to the sport.  At its most basic, football is a game that requires a few players and coaches.  Some local people might watch that game, but maybe just a few hundred.  A thousand?  A high school stadium?  Now bring in the broadcasting industry.  Radio, television, and streaming coverage.  Play-by-play announcers, the color guy, and sideline reporters to get us excited about teams and players.  No need for any of the broadcast team without the football game, but the football games would barely exist without being built up by the broadcasting either.  It is a symbiotic relationship that has driven the massive growth of both.

Camera people, sound people, engineers in the trucks parked at the stadiums.  Drivers, equipment people, and the people that make that equipment.  Attorneys and agents.  Million dollar, ten million dollar, and hundred million dollar packages for individual players and the economics still work; and the unimaginably rich team owners get richer.  Medical staff.  All the sports journalists reporting and projecting.  The whole refereeing cadre must be an ecosystem of its own. 

High school and college football programs feed into the pros.  Huge stadiums provide construction jobs for all the people that build them.  There are ticket sales and concessions at those huge stadiums.  (Let’s do some quick math.  If tickets are $100 each and attendance is 100,000 that could be ten million dollars for each home game.  Maybe it’s only half that, five million dollars.  Okay.)  (Television rights provided over 400 million dollars to each team in 2024.)  Parking.  Security.  Merchandising.  Sponsorships.  Travel packages and tailgating.  Fantasy leagues.  Sports betting.  Grounds crews.  The companies and people that make those massive jumbotrons in the ever-bigger stadiums.

Such an immense economic web, and now it’s gone global, with games scheduled in other countries around the world.  It’s all built up around a few people playing a game.