theholtsite

I haven’t been blogging much this… year? I guess I’ve been letting Jill do the Alice/family updates and haven’t bothered to post what’s going on with me. Maybe I go through seasons of not wanting or caring to let the outside world know what’s going on?

Here’s an update on what’s up with me, if you care to read it!

Musically, I’ve been involved in several things this year. I’m in a cover band called the Cassettes, and we play mostly 80’s and 90’s covers in bars when we can get paying gigs. We’ve had several recently, and it’s fun to be gigging regularly after two years of playing together.

I’m also involved in a project with my friend Tony (an excellent guitarist and songwriter) called Grace and Caperings (five-person band). It’s really fun, and I get to add neat textures and ideas. This week we recorded in a studio in Cambridge, which was three solid days of work. Nothing is finished yet, but hopefully soon.

Church life is great. We continue to host at our house, and I’m consistently blessed by my amazing brothers and sisters in Christ… I can’t express how thankful I am for them. They encourage me and give me an outlet for teaching.

I’m also teaching a 5th and 6th grade Sunday school class this year at Trinity church in Bolton. It has up to 12 kids at a time, but so far I’m managing. I bribe them with donuts and teach crazy things about the Bible they’ve never learned. We also do some kind of origami every class.

I’m still teaching guitar, as ever!

I’m also working on a *huge* coding project in conjunction with the Ayer public access channel and my friend Charlie, the president of said organization. It’s not that lucrative yet, but hopefully will be in the near future as we sign up subscribers to our service.

Finally, I’ve been a bit of a geek today (maybe this was the reason I felt like blogging) and wanted to post my results. Here’s me playing an ancient text-based game called Angband that is way more fun that it should be:

And here’s my latest geeky desktop using GeekTool, a fun thing for geeks:

Being a dad is going well, too. Alice seems to like me a lot. I’m almost certain that’s not a great indicator of good parenting, but there it is. Jill is quite a good mother and has “the gift” in this area. We agree on most parental/discipline issues, and everyone who takes care of Alice comments on her good behavior. I strongly suspect that this thing called “the terrible twos” doesn’t exist. Jill also reads her a lot of Bible stories, and we don’t focus much on the Santa thing, so (amusingly) Alice knows more about Abraham and Joseph than reindeer or elves. But that’s cool with us 🙂 Finally, Alice is really good at physical things. She takes occasional gymnastics classes, climbs trees, knows how to pivot on a dime, jumps off tall objects, does wheelbarrow walks and pushups and somersaults, etc.

Finally, I’ve been buying and selling guitar gear for a few years now, trying to get that perfect mix of portability, sound, and musical geekiness. I’ve gotten closer than ever. Here’s some pics of my latest iteration. Yes, my pedalboard is a tiny briefcase!