Tuesday, November 5, 2024

 Tuesday, November 5, 2024

   Presidential Election Day 2024.  I didn't listen to the news. No matter who won, I wasn't expecting a good outcome for the country. 

    I slept well last night. Even if I do think of issues that trouble me, I haven't been falling into virulent ruminating. The first order of the day was getting my car and Joseph's out of the driveway. Provision Solar was coming today to start work on dismantling the solar panels Hawaiian Solar installed in July of 2017.  The panels that were installed were lemons. They started breaking down by 2019. The company was reliable and replaced them when necessary. Nineteen out of the original 34 were replaced. The company gave up as they continued to break down, and the 310s were getting hard to replace. They had an excellent warranty plan. I could continue with the original company, getting replacements for defuncted panels, keep the money for a college fund, or get the panels replaced. I chose option C.  It's been a long process.  I was hoping to have it all completed before the election. I was expecting chaos, the end of life as I had known it. they missed that date. 

    The installation team from Provision Solar arrived early in the morning. There was some minor confusion over the racks. Were they going to be replaced or used for the new set of solar panels? The old ones were 310s, and the new ones were 400s. When they called the company, that got straightened out. As I thought they were going to use the existing racks. Only one set had to be dismantled and used in a different configuration. 

   I learned today that I could resell my old solar panels. The going price is one dollar per kwh.  My 310s were originally worth $310.  I wasn't expecting that kind of money.  It's too bad I hadn't been told that before they shut down the system.  I could have determined which panels were defuncted and which were still functional using the online app. No, I couldn't put them in the usual trash. I would have to go to the electronic recycling center. I might have to pay something for them to take it.

    I met with fourth-grade LG today. I see problems with his thought process. He keeps on insisting the 2-5=3.  For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to get it through to him that that was impossible. He doesn't see a connection between the abstract and the concrete. He gets it when I tell him he can't give someone more than he has. He's confused when I write that as an algorithm, 2-5=, and tell him it can't be done.

   The algorithm is a story written with mathematical symbols instead of words. It is another language. I wrote several stories to illustrate the principle in words:

    LG went to school with two candies in his pocket. The class bully approached him and said, "Hey, man. I know you have candy in your pocket. Give me six on them, or else."

LG said, "Hey. I only have two candies. I can't give you six."

The bully said, "Tough man. Give me the two you have, and you owe me the other four."

    LG wants to buy a soda from Costco.  The soda costs $6.  He looks in his pocket and finds he only has $2.  He needs four more.

   He got the story when written in words but was still confused as to why 2-6 didn't equal four.  I asked him to explain why he didn't get it.  He said, "When I put 2-8 in the calculator, the answer is 6." Holy cow!  The answer is -6, which means something different from 6. How long has this been going on? Given his intelligence, probably since first grade when subtraction was introduced. I showed him negative numbers on a number line. He finally got it. It took an hour and a half to break through his misunderstanding. While LG is a remarkable young man, he may have given me a clue about what may be confusing a lot of kids.

    I ran into Josh in the driveway.  I had told him last week that we would be without solar energy until the county planning department had inspected the job.  That could be one day or two months. That would be a pretty penny since we run 45 to 60 kWh daily.  I told him I would help cover the immediate bill. We could settle the difference when we did our annual reconciliation in April.