Yep - I'm in Vegas now - just blew $1250 at 2/5 two nights in a row and it's not killing me because I have a job. Played with Daliman last night - that was fun.

I just became a grandaddy!

Is this an STTF first?

Miss you all

I was about to feel really old, but then I remembered you have an older son. Seems a bit soon for the ones I met! Miss you too!

His name is Raen, pronounced Rain, Arco which means bow. In other words my little rainbow

Congrats.

Congrats!

You're the first grandad that I know, but SFB maybe? (Irieguy didn't have kids back in the day, but who knows now and I think he has a sibling) Also I think Bluefeet has two daughters and at least one of them is probably almost 30.

I still think about stopping by Peru some day. My kids will be empty nesting us in a few years and I am hoping/expecting to have adventures.

Congrats Peru!

Micro, you can come travel with me in South America if you want. Most likely late 2020 or early 2021.

Congrats Joss!

Micro, how’s the solar business treating you? Our prime minister just committed to net zero Buildings by 2050. Which of course means nothing when he could be out of power in two years. But it sounds good.

The industry in CA continues to grow, but the rate of growth has definitely slowed and the large tariffs are part of the reason. Though, looking it up, I see the fires have perhaps increased demand. (and I have replaced one array that burned in the Malibu fires)

For me personally, I've learned how to not lose money and that means scaling things back. For the last couple years I do almost everything myself. If I need help on a job I have a couple people who can help as needed. If I ever get a big commercial job, I'll just use temp work. I've had a pretty decent run of good jobs from referrals and I only subcontract for the one guy I know who pays pretty well for that. So, it's going alright. Being more selective though, I'm not busy all the time and I'm working on other stuff (computer/web) that will hopefully make some money to fill in the gaps. Besides, it would be exhausting to be busy 100% of the time doing solar on my own.

Micro, any uptick in battery systems, off grid type stuff? With power outages seeming to be a fact of life now in California seems like people would be looking for options.

Beautiful name Joss

Yes. Interest has been growing and the fires have increased that a bunch. I installed a battery system this summer, added more batteries to another system, and will be working on another one tomorrow.

Have you ever looked into/pursued jobs in the marine market. Lots of sailboats have off grid solar and or wind generators and battery systems. Your in the right area for it.

I put one solar panel on one boat once. I would certainly entertain doing that work if it comes to me, but, such as it is, work generally comes to me after doing this for 11 years. I don't really pursue anything. Also, like there are two pretty different markets in RV or boats. There are a lot of poor people who need maybe a few panels and I'm happy to do that work, I wouldn't make a living doing it. Maybe there's a living that could be made working on multi-million dollar boats, but that seems more about being good at boats than good at solar. Anyway, there are like a million houses in SoCal and solar systems on houses are gonna pretty much all be much bigger than on even big boats.

All good points

Any (improved) changes in on-site battery storage for solar systems, or is that still years away from becoming a *standard* add-on for people putting solar on their roof?

(I.e. for everyone reliant on PG&E and subject to blackouts)

It's definitely getting more common. I worked on a few little battery things my first 10 years in solar and about 5 in the last year. It's costing less and there's more reason for it, but it's still going to be a luxury item and won't save many people money vs. not having power for a relatively short time. It's not quite standard, but it's getting close to standard to at least set a system up in anticipation of adding batteries at some point.

11 years! Time flies. I remember when you were first going into the business and you were going to be my sugar daddy. I wish that worked out. Now there's no sugar.

I just asked my daughter, who is now 20 years old, and she remembers the AIM conversation where you were calling me "Bad Jay". She remembers it better than I do it seems. She was like 6 years old then. It was in the house we moved out of before she started 2nd grade.

Suzzer, Micro et al always welcome here in Arequipa.

Matt, I've now built on the third floor so I have bedroom bath and phenomenal views for my guests :

What's an AIM conversation?
Life moves pretty fast Ferris....

AOL Instant Messenger

That's impressive. You'll always be Bad Jay to me. I'm glad she's keeping it alive.

Sup STTF, seems everyone is getting on quite well, crazy to see the same old names!

P.S.
Bones if your reading this I'm back in Austin, although gone for holidays -- surprised I haven't ran into you yet!