The best thing about having quit my job just over a week ago is that I finally have a chance to grow my soul back.

I never want to return to Corporate America again.

The worst thing? Almost no internet now. I haven’t replaced my laptop since some drug addicts broke into our apartment on Tax Day and relieved me of it.

I decided it would be best to wait until right before I leave for Harvard; it’s hard to lay down the money to replace it since discovering that this apartment building was designed with a fundamental flaw that makes real security impossible.

When I lived in Moscow, Idaho, I didn’t have to worry about security. The last apartment I had there, I kept my back door open 24/7 until winter. Once I rented a room from a family – they never even gave me a key to the front door. It was never locked.

But here in LA, we apparently have to live in lock-down mode all the time. This is a symptom of a larger problem, of course, but the basic tenants of safety are dishonored in this apartment building by what?

Bad design.

In fact, it’s such a simple flaw that I can see how it was overlooked by someone in a hurry. Or someone who did not appreciate the ramifications of an *almost* appropriate fenestration solution.

(Or maybe the person who specified sliding glass doors with the sliding door to the OUTSIDE such that the inhabitant can’t stick a stick in the track to keep someone OUTSIDE from opening it is just… DUMB!)

So here is my admonishment to all you designers, architects, future architect, et al: consider the crime rate, the drug addicts, the theives. Design for them too!