PlanetHolt.com

Welcome to 2011! The month of December was pretty crazy, but I’m happy 2011 is here now. I had a great holiday break, but I’ve started my new position at Deere and recently found out that the offer I put in on a house was accepted.

So first, I am buying a new house as part of my previously-announced relocation to the Des Moines area. I found a house in Johnston, Iowa, that met all my criteria. It’s a new construction, finished shortly before I started looking, which will be a new experience for me.

Since I was house hunting from out of town, I decided to record walk-through videos as I viewed houses with my realtor—mainly to help me remember the details. I think the first day we saw something like fifteen houses, which is way too many to keep straight. As a side benefit, I’ve been able to use the videos to show family and friends prior to putting in the offer, to get feedback from them, and now I can show it to you! The house was a model home for the neighborhood, so the video shows the model furniture, but it will be bare when I take possession.

As I mentioned, I spent NYE 2009 in Chicago with many of my fraternity brothers. We had a blast: Makeshift put on a great show at Goose Island, we met up with cousins Kelly and Patrick on the 1st, and despite the wrong team winning at the United Center, we did our best to cheer the Illini to victory. Our family had a lovely evening downtown on the 2nd, before we headed for home on the 3rd.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, not least because of the delicious traditional Thanksgiving dinner (Mmm, turkey…) and the fact that there are no gifts one has to pretend to enjoy (I kid…). This year’s celebration of thanks was indeed lovely, and I enjoyed seeing family, eating too much, and watching college basketball.

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had as wonderful of a time as I did celebrating the new year with fraternity brothers in the great city of Chicago. Tom, Nathan, and I drove up from Woodhull during the afternoon of December 31, checked into our hotel, and prepared ourselves for a night (not) to remember.