Airbag International

• C'est la Vie Austin?
• Yellow is the new normal.
• Holiday Office Hours, the Airbag Way.
• The new MacBook Pro, the one without the "Touchbar," is pretty great.
• A moment for us all to rally and answer the call to help someone who has helped us all.
• A peak behind the gigantic enterprise design kimono.
• Jeffrey Zeldman announces a new startup: 1999 2.0.
• Making sense of all the jibba jabba during user research.
• An unexpected, worldwide turn.
• Months ago Zeldman suggested that I forgo single word titles and practice better SEO. He's right. At first, the one word titles thing was fun, but over time, it became one more barrier to publishing. Textism, I did what I could.
• Hired.
• Handicapped.
• Maybe.
• Cupcake.

Maybe.

In the days after September 11th, I waited for news of terrorist attacks in small towns around the United States. As horrific as the attacks were in New York City and Washington D.C. (including the crashed plane destined for the White House), they took place in two big cities on the East Coast. At the time, I lived in Southern California, three times zones or a six-hour flight away. I felt a certain amount of security being so far away from Ground Zero (except that one time a F/A 18 flew CAP (cover and protect) above Disneyland for about an hour, that was pretty freaky).

I thought for sure a few small towns around the country were going to get hit. Nothing as spectacular killing by jet plane, but maybe a local diner or cafe shot to hell. Keep in mind, assault rifle massacres were not so common as they are now. At the time, I theorized that the best way to really shut down the United States was to hit a handful of really small towns in Middle America. Thankfully, it never happened.

This evening I read the attack in San Bernardino is being investigated federally as terrorism. And now, though I am thousands of miles away in Austin, I don't feel the same security via distance as I did fourteen years ago. Look, I'm not going to avoid public places, but with all the shit going down this year, nowhere is 100% safe. Nothing is off the table anymore: Elementary schools, university campuses, offices, government buildings, theaters, malls, coffee shops, and now Christmas parties.

@#$%!

Given the current state of our country--our government--I am concerned that our country's leadership will be more willing turn parts of Syria and Iraq into glass (that is to say, drop a nuclear weapon) than they are to conduct level-headed discourse and take appropriate action about access to weapons in this nation. I don't see the government willing nor able to come together to work this out.

So, Happy Holidays everyone! Drink and be merry, this will all pass soon or at least never happen in your town—maybe. And may little, Instgramable, birthday boy, baby Jesus bless the United States of AR15s.