[X4U] Save my marriage!

[Jim Robertson]

On 12/14/05 12:32 AM, "Kirk McElhearn" <kirklists at wanadoo.fr> wrote:

> True, you can probably find a used old PC laptop for a couple hundred
> bucks; with luck, you might even find someone to give you one, if
> it's old enough. If the software is still on floppy disks, it must be
> pretty old and not need much of a processor.

I think the software comes on floppies in part because the machine ITSELF
has a 3.5" drive. It appears I've barely scratched the surface of this
hobby. People on the "Designer 1" Yahoo group answer my questions with
acronyms and argot that mean nothing to me, waxing on about programs that
are shareware (and, given the activity, maybe even sharewear), and far
cheaper than the programs one can buy from Husqvarna for (gulp) $1100.

This particular machine is being reconfigured with a USB 2.0 port in the
coming months. I don't know if older models can be upgraded.

By the way, I'm considering traveling to France again this summer. I
typically spend a week on my bicycle in a guided trip with Backroads, a
Berkeley-based travel company who do wonderful "active" vacations all over
the world. I've been to the Loire Valley, the Luberon in Provence, and to
the area around Megeve (for the TDF in 2004, where we cycled to the top of
Col de Croix Fry and watched Lance blister the competition). Backroads trips
are becoming VERY expensive, particularly if one uses their "luxury hotels"
trips, and they now have some "casual inns" trips that are $1200 cheaper.
The only "casual inns" trips available in July are in Brittany-Normandy (I
expect cycling along that coast would be VERY windy, and I've been to
Normandy on my own), Provence (I'd love to go back there but my guess is it
would be VERY hot in July), and the Dordogne, about which I know NOTHING.

Any thoughts on that? (off-list reply obviously appropriate here if you care
to expound)

Jim Robertson
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