non compos mentis

I think I would really like to just use one mail interface.
Honestly.
But, at the same time, having seen internet companies, and free mail servers, and other free web services come and go,
or go from free to not-free, etc.
I don't want to entrust all of my imporant mail to a web company, not even the Allmighty Google, without a back up.

But, I've been using the google calendar, and gmail, etc. quite successfully, yet still downloading mail to my machine via t-bird to keep it backed up here, just in case, which is starting to be a headache.

The only advantage I can think of in using a pop mail client to deal with my mail (besides having it archive here, as well as on google's gmail servers), is that I can switch spellcheck languages while composing messages in tbird at the click of a button (which, in fact, can be a considerable advantage, when one considers that I frequently write mail in 4 different languages, only one of which is my native language, of course).
Otherwise, the gmail interface offers me pretty well all the same functionality.

But, I've been thinking...
I think there is a way for me to download and archive the mail automagically, using something like cron and mutt, or something.
I mean, I'm nearly certain that it is possible.
I just don't know how to do it, at the moment.
I'm going to look into that.
Then, I will simply set FF to use gmail as my default mail client, set my current key binding for t-bird (ctrl + e) to bring up "/usr/bin/firefox http://mail.google.com", instead of "/usr/bin/mozilla-thunderbird", and simplify the whole matter.
One interface, but still have mail backed up here.
I'm going to look into that.