Frank wrote:
Hee, hee! Ok, Doug, ya got me on the Windows-specific thing. Actually,
I spent a couple of years around '90 working on Mac stuff. (You do know
that MS has historically been their biggest applications supplier?)

I didn't know that. Is that why MS bought up Apple?

... I
probably used 'em harder than most people; but I got that damned
"anarchist's bomb" (BSOD equivalent) pretty regularly.

I've seen that a few times, but nowhere near as often as Windows
crashes. Usually what happens is that the Mac decides something is
rotten in the state of Denmark, saves your file with a marker on the
desktop, and kills the process. You see the app window pop like a soap
bubble, and say bad words, but you can start right back again no prob.

Compare that to the 2 or 3 times a week Windows crash, where you spend a
few minutes trying make sure the damn thing has really crashed,
rebooting, and trying to get the computer to pretty please restart the
application. Then sometimes as it was getting ready to crash, it also
lost your file.

Windows XP-Pro (and WTF have 2 bloated versions of the same OS?) doesn't
do this nearly so often as '98, ME, SE, 2000, etc etc. But it's still
necessary to keep it in mind as one is trying to work, or one gets
"gotcha"d.

... And I know lots
of graphic artists, etc. who are much happier in the Mac environment.
Anyway...

Is CAD a graphic art?


As for sailing with software, I've decided that it's too high-tech for
me. I'm sure it wins races to have all that info to massage; but I'd
just prefer to enjoy the *feel* of sailing, even if it means coming in
second behind the guys who have a coupla software geeks on their crew
crunching data fulltime. I suspect I have more *fun* than they do.


Maybe. There are lots of different ways to have fun. I know people who
cruise up and down the ICW and enjoy trying to make the little boat icon
on the computer screen follow the little red line on the chart.
Diff'rent strokes and all that.

The website you cited *is* the airplane I love. A joy to fly, roomiest
cockpit in the universe, excellent visibility, cruise at 200, and
stall-proof. But I'm a pilot not a builder. Gotta find one already
built, just the way I want, for a good price.

You need to hook up with somebody who enjoys building them instead of
flying them.

... Right. Oh yeah, and
convince my wife that we really do *need* an airplane.
Good luck to me on that one!


Just show her on map all the fun places you can go in far less time (and
subtley point out that time is money). They need to make a camper
version, then you'd be all set

Regards
Doug King