Hello all from the Crossroads Arts District of Kansas City! I am here writing at Café Corazón, a hip coffee spot on Southwest Boulevard, during my holiday visit back to the States, which has also included a trip down to the Caymans to be with family, and my first real trip to discover the historic city of Boston. I've experienced these past couple week some shocks of extreme cold (Back Bay) and heat (Seven Mile), but luckily saw a fantastic Chiefs win on New Years Eve; and learned later on that I was in the midst of—along with 73,565 other fans—Taylor Swift.
It has been a LONG time since I last wrote here (September of 2022), and I have many excuses, but the silence has been due to the efforts made with finishing my book, and not to be too dramatic, but barely hanging on to my existence in Germany. Thank the Lord though, I am now gainfully employed in Munich.
After writing a 300 page book about “me” though, it has left me thoroughly exhausted of myself as a topic, so I won't ramble on about all the happenings in my life. And unlike other pervious newsletters, I won’t opine on the state of affairs in the world; from my perspective, it's both agonizingly complicated and brutal, but also gloriously wonderful and beautiful. Rest assure though, that life is great and that my German is a heck of a lot better these days.
I've also been hesitant to say anything, because, you see, when you are in real estate, or at least for me, nothing is done until money hits the bank. I tend to not admit something is going to make it until it is absolutely certain. Which means for a long time I refused to recognize that I would finish this first book of mine. Even at this very moment, it is not done-done; as-in, you cannot buy it yet. But let's be real, this puppy is done! I just need to take care of some technicalities like ISBN numbers and make a couple tweaks to the cover. Therefore, it's time to re-engage with you all, and create whatever momentum I can in terms of promoting this work.
I am probably a book-marketer's nightmare, because I am rejecting social media platforms and simply relying on this newsletter, my business relationships, and connections to the media world—which this last bucket of people are terribly lacking considering I am just an old real estate guy. There is no call-to-action at this point, other than, let me know if you'd like me to use a different email since years have gone by now. Please though, give me another thirty days (or so) and we can finally say Tom Houts is an author.
Bis später!
p.s. Since I always like including some cover art to these articles, here is a picture from my visit to Lake Garda in September. I finally understand why so many from Munich bang out of town for the weekend to this dreamy lake in northern Italy.
