So, that said, we just want to wish you a very Merry Christmas. We’ve had a great year and want share some of the highlights with you.

Grace is a fourth-grader now. She had a big year with getting her braces on and switching from soccer and gymnastics to tennis. She went skiing for the first time in February and hasn’t met a critter she doesn’t like. Currently her collection includes two small red-eared slider turtles. Grace loves art, always making something in her room. She has been expanding her interest in art taking after school art classes and even participated in an art camp in the fall where she was able to show her work at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

Brett is now is seventh grade — his second year of middle school. Brett still loves video games, Lego, and building increasingly elaborate cities in the sandbox in the back yard. He’s really started to take some interest in technology making videos with his friends. He’s also become the iPod expert at his school helping his friends install the latest and greatest software. He also got to ski for the first time this year and joined the school Cross Country team in the fall. Brett stays busy but never misses a chance to relax in a hot bath or with a big blanket.

Jason has had a big year, too. Early in the year he accepted a new job that allows him to do what he loves and work from home. He works with an amazing team of people — it is truly a dream job. Jason continues to have way more interests than time and splits his focus among family, work, music, art, games, yard work, etc.

Holly is busier than all of us combined, it seems. She’s always got a project going wether it is building a deck in the back yard, landscaping, or remodeling the house. And that’s just at home. Many of her friends and neighbors have asked Holly to work on their projects, too. All this while keeping the rest of us in line and making sure everyone is fed, dressed and where they need to be when they need to be there. Whew.

It’s been a wild year and we can’t wait to see what is in store for 2010. We hope all of you are doing well and that you have a wonderful Christmas and New year.

Love,

The Zimdars
Jason, Holly, Brett & Grace

Please enjoy these pictures from the past year (click each one to see it larger).

I love everything about this from the unique and eco-friendly underground design to the beautiful, natural materials — all with a modern aesthetic.

Tons more pictures here.

The site made me think of one of my favorite photos of all time. This is a photo of my grandpa Zimdars looking every bit like a Chicago gangster posing with his car in Wisconsin. I don’t know the year, or what kind of car, or the occasion; but I’ve always thought that this photo just dripped cool.

Here’s a scan of the image:

Grandpa Zimdars, impossibly cool

Update: Michael Farley suggests the car is a 1931 Pontiac 6. Beautiful car.

I haven’t been writing much here, now that most of my effort has been on pieces for Signal vs. Noise and our new Design Explorations series. Here are a few recent articles in case you missed them:

• Exploring the Basecamp Account (Upgrade/Billing) screen
• Highrise Edit Contacts Screen
• Work in Photoshop, don’t save in Photoshop
• “Good enough” instead of “absolutely perfect”
• Design Decisions: Redesigning Basecamp’s global milestone view
• Working at 37signals

I’ve been working on some really great new features in Basecamp that I think you’ll like. Keep an eye on SvN and our Product Blog for updates.

I, too, grew up drawing and everyone always expected me to be an artist. I drew constantly as a kid, right up through high school where my ability was known enough that my teachers didn’t mind if I drew in class—I always managed to follow the lesson anyway. (I’ve always thought it was some kind of hyper creative state that allowed me to stay fully on-task in the class while drawing).

Drawing was my thing. It started with copying Garfield characters out of books (I still really admire the line work in Jon Davis’ comics). By middle school, I was drawing my own original comics for the school newspaper (typically written by my best friend, Josh Glider). Finally, in high school I took all the art electives they would let me and got a bit more commercial, drawing mascots for the school and some of the on-campus clubs. I still have some of the t-shirts.

Drawing was the way that an average athlete and above-average nerd gained a little corner of popularity both with kids and adults. It certainly was an easy way to make friends and impress people. But I was always annoyed by the people that insisted that they could not draw, dismissing what I could do as some naturally born talent. Did they not realize that I could draw because I worked my ass off at it? Did they not know I drew ALL THE TIME? Perhaps, not as elequently as Siracusa I realized that there was more to it. I wasn’t blessed with some kind of superhuman hand-eye coordination or the subtlety of gesture to shade carefully. No, what I was given was a very critical eye and a yearn for realism.

As John described, I, too, saw some of this manifest with my toys and interactions with adults. Toys were never realistic enough. I hated that my toy Millennium Falcon was so squat and dumpy compared to the lean and elegant model in the movies. Why did all of my action figures stand as if at attention instead of in an action pose? Why was the illustration of the Transformer on the package so dynamic and the toy so dull? Didn’t anyone else notice this stuff?

I had the same problem with adults growing up. They always seemed so imprecise and got things wrong that really mattered. Like mixing up Star Wars and Star Trek (or Star Track, ugh). They couldn’t remember what night the TV show was on, or what day the new movie came out, or that character’s name on that show. I since realize that adults probably had a lot more on their minds than I did as a child, but it still annoys me even when I slip up now.

No, Siracusa nailed it. The thing that I struggled with (continue to struggle with), the real ability I was blessed with, the thing that made me an artist (ok, designer) is a critical eye. Not that this doesn’t come without it’s drawbacks. I love this passage, in particular:

The drawbacks are obvious. Knowing what’s wrong with something (or thinking that you do, which, for the purposes of this discussion, should be considered the same thing) does a fat lot of good if you lack the skills to correct it. And thinking that you know what’s wrong with everything requires significant impulse control if you want to avoid pissing off everyone you meet.

But much worse than that, it means that everything you ever create appears to you as an accumulation of defeats. “Here’s where I gave up trying to get that part right and moved on to the next part.” Because at every turn, it’s apparent to you exactly how poorly executed your work-in-progress is, and how far short it will inevitably fall when completed. But surrender you must, at each step of the process, because the alternative is to never complete anything—or to never start at all.

This is why it is hard to be satisfied with my work—there is always a flaw. And knowing what is wrong with everything certainly has made personal and professional relationships challenging at times. But it has probably had an even greater effect on my work, so for that I am thankful.

So what’s the point of writing about this? I’m not sure. It might just be to give John Siracusa a high-five and a “right-on”. It is pretty rare and cool to read something that you can identify with so deeply. Oh, and it also appears that I share one more trait with John: verbosity.

It’s been a long road to get here, and now the fun really begins. I really enjoyed the hiring process which, like most everything 37signals does, isn’t approached like any other company. You can read more about it in the official announcement and hopefully I’ll get the chance to talk more about it later. Exciting things ahead!

“I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”

Actor, Michael Caine describing Jaws: The Revenge— a movie he’s supposed to be ashamed of.

I found that quote, and the entire CNN interview with Caine very charming. Great perspective from a guy who’s been doing what he loves for a very long time.

I think many of us—especially those with an artistic or creative bent— can appreciate his sentiments about taking jobs “because I thought no one was ever going to offer me another one”. We all face doubts in our work and may have to pay our dues, so it’s encouraging to see how he has reached a level where he takes jobs only when they interest him; when “they’re so good they interrupt my life”. When you find a project like that, work isn’t work anymore and that’s where the interesting things start to happen.

If you are an internet person in the Oklahoma City area, Refresh is a great way to meet and get to know people that do what we do around here—and there are more of us than you might think!

Update

For those of you interested, the audio podcast version of the evening has been posted at RefreshOKC.org.