I have been watching a domain since April that expired in May, I even acquired the services of snapnames to better my odds of securing it; today I find through deleted domains that the name I wanted was "put on hold" November 15th.

:angry:

What does it mean when a domain is put on hold?

"On hold" means that a domain has not been paid for, and will be released back into the pool of available domains in the future. How soon into the future depends on the registrar. Network Solutions, for example, likes to hang on to domains for a LONG time before releasing them- and even then they may be auctioned off. Keep watching it over the next few days/weeks/months, though... You may get lucky.

Thanks for the positive input Brian, maybe I'll get lucky :)