Today and tonight something happened to me that never happened before. I gave up on a graphic design problem and quit it.

I have worked in print and web advertising forever, it seems. Actually, I didn't get into designing web sites until (early!) about 1990. I have done print design since ... well, the video camera hadn't even been invented yet!

This web site is a large and broad one. It has over a hundred main products, all large machines. It has over 140 HTML pages, which are what you see when you look at it with your browser.

The problem I am having is the special characters. Those are (in this case) the register mark, which looks like ® - a little "R" in a circle, the trademark, which is a TM symbol, and the degree mark, which is a tiny circle.

No matter what I do it doesn't code correctly and displays as odd-ball characters on the browsers.

I have been in touch by email and on the phone for hours with a lady in southern California who is a real web and HTML pro, and she does it just fine. But when I attempt the very same functions, poof! It doesn't work.

I suspect that the problem lies in my software, which is Adobe GoLive, and it is almost five years old (I can't afford upgrades any more.)

So, not in desperation but in view of the economics and deadlines, I quit.

I am telling the client to let that lady, a real pro with the very latest versions of the software, do it.

In conclusion, I am going out to my kitchen and having a cold beer.

I haven't failed. I just got smart.
........

On the better side, I framed barn number two tonight. Looks great, but I have yet to photograph it. Right now it is snowing and we are supposed to get our first incremental snow cover by morning. It will be nothing like the folks in the Appalachians and the east coast. I hear it snowed on Chincoteague island! That has to be the first snow there in decades.

Be safe. Only a fool would drive out in a foot or more of snow. Call in if you work Saturdays and tell them you'll see them Monday.