"I figured it was costing me $6,000 a year, at last year's prices," he told me as solar contractor Mark Bortman checked the last roof panels and driller John R. David checked the well grout. "Plus around $800 for electric air-conditioning."

Frimet went green. That meant ripping out bushes and smashing his concrete driveway to dig and pipe a 500-foot well in his front yard, to reach underground water that stays a cave-like 56 degrees Fahrenheit all year. And pumping pressured fluid through that water into geothermal heating and cooling

compressors to climate-control the house. Plus a rooftop solar hot-water system.

The cost: about $10,000 to David's employer, drillers B.L. Myers Bros., Glenmoore, Chester County; about $20,000 to Craig Geier's GreeningTheHouse.com, of Newtown, Bucks County, for the heating and cooling installation, and about $7,000 to Bortman's Exact Solar L.L.C., Yardley, for the roof and boiler system.

Subtract 30 percent in federal solar-energy tax credits and, as Bortman told Frimet, he could make it back in six or seven years.

"What made it appealing to me was Obama's stimulus," which expanded solar-income tax credits, Frimet said.

After the drilling but before the indoor equipment arrived, Frimet lost his job as a computer programmer. He tightened his belt and kept the project running, to avoid the frustration of having to pay for oil while also repaying First Federal Bank of Bucks County for half a job.

Geier connected the system late last month. The family's been using the A.C. during this unusually pleasant July.

"It's comfortable. It's whisper-quiet. And there's less dust," Frimet told me. "My big challenge right now is keeping my wife and my mother-in-law happy."

"Mom's always cold," said Janet Frimet.

"And I'm putting the lawn back together," Ted said. "I'm a bush-and-tree guy." Green.

New media

"Most teenagers nowadays are not regular listeners to the radio." They prefer iPods.

Boys watch football; girls watch soap operas, on TV. But "iPlayer . . . allows them to watch shows when they want." They ignore TV ads.

Kids don't buy print publications. Except the Sun newspaper, which cut its price to about a quarter, "so I have seen more and more copies read by teenagers."

Kids think music is free, except live shows. Wii has brought girls into the male gamer world.

"Facebook is popular as one can interact with friends on a wide scale. On the other hand, teenagers do not use Twitter. . . . They would rather text. . . . "

"Teenagers see adverts on Web sites (pop ups, banner ads) as extremely annoying. . . . No one follows them."

"Anything with a touch screen is desirable." Also "really big tellies."

Obvious, no? I ran this by my kids' smart friends for a U.S. spin. Claire Hoelmer, past editor of the high school paper at St. Mark's in Wilmington, mixed and matched Robson's points:

American kids still listen to radio, because, unlike Europeans, they're in cars a lot.

Online TV is crowding out the old tube. "On Hulu.com, the online ads only last about 20 seconds," vs. "5 minutes" on cable TV.

"Newspapers always seem to be the more trustworthy and authentic, but they're also ungainly . . . and laden with unnecessary extras. . . . I like to get my news from the same sources, but online."

In phones, "texting is probably the most important feature. . . . Lately, people have been using the mobile Facebook application from their phones, giving them the chance to update their status annoyingly often."

For music and video, "overall, free is good."

That was smooth. Hey, maybe securities analysis, in the future, will be free, too.