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Last week I went to Jazz Camp.  This is a camp run by Centrum, a local arts organization, in Port Townsend, WA.  It is held each year the week before the Port Townsend Jazz Festival, which Centrum also runs.  I’ve been playing in a jazz...

Sorry for the delay in getting these photos posted, it's been a little busy around here.  Finally though, the update many of you have been waiting for.  On July 9 the project began to get our house painted.  Not a lot to say about the process...

Seattle, when I moved here in 1995, used to freak out when it hit 90 degrees.  have vivid memories of that since I moved here from Milwaukee, WI where that was pretty common in the summer.  The official temperature for Seattle today was 98 --...

Well, it's been far too long since my last post.  Thankfully, my niece Katherine posted to her blog this week and reminded me that I should really post some photos of our garden.  First up is a photo of Lucky next to the garden bed by the side...

This past weekend I had the pleasure of going to Atlanta to stand up as the Best Man in the wedding of my good friend Tim Clark.  I flew out Wednesday, and it was a whirlwind trip.  Tim and Jen are a great couple, and I’m extremely happy for...

Today is Earth Day.  It’s fitting I suppose that I spent a significant portion of the weekend working in the yard.  Yesterday was pressure washing all of the concrete (it’s amazing how much moss/algae grows on the concrete in a Seattle winter). ...

Mary and I went to Las Vegas last week for four nights to recharge after our wet Seattle winter.  It turns out to have been perfect timing because Las Vegas was having warmer than normal temperatures with each day in the upper 80s to mid 90s while...

Two things of note this week.  Both notables actually happened on Monday.  First, it was my 10 year anniversary of working at Microsoft.  I actually started there in June of 1995, but counting the time off in the middle to go see the country...

Today was Seattle’s Chinese New Year celebration.  This was part of the motivation for me taking a photo safari this morning.  My sister provided the motivation for me to go check it out as she and her family are wrapping up their current study...

Today was a lovely Seattle day (nearly 65 degrees!) and I spent the morning on photo safari at Pike Place Market.  Every now and then I'll go to Glazer's Camera and rent a lens to experiment.  Today I used a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM and...

I am pleased to officially launch one of my current drumming projects:   www.peteharrisquartet.com...

You'll also enjoy checking out these 2007 NAMM Oddities.  It's a nice recap of some of the stranger things at NAMM.  I saw several, of these and they are genuinely odd....

Michael Pollan has done it again. Go check out this article in the Sunday New York Times for a great summary of what's wrong with food and nutrition in this country (free registration is required).For those of you unfamiliar with Pollan's work, he's the...

Having had a couple days to reflect on my first NAMM show, I have to conclude it was fantastic.  I had more fun, saw more gear, saw more great drummers, and heard more awesome music than I ever imagined I would - and my expectations were pretty high...

My feet hurt.  It’s just that simple.  Today was my last day at NAMM and I feel like I’ve been walking for three days straight.  It’s been worth every step as today felt even more amazing than yesterday.  Day one was about the main...

Wow.  I was expecting today to be a pretty cool day, with the possibility for lots of artist sightings.  The second day of the NAMM show didn’t disappoint at all.  Seriously: wow. Today’s show opened with a great band called Wicked Tinkers. ...

Today was the first day of the NAMM show.  The exhibit halls opened at 10am, and I was there ready to go.  I had heard quite a bit about the show from friends prior to my trip down here, and my expectations were pretty high.  I’m a bit...

Today I flew to Anaheim, California to attend the NAMM show.  NAMM is a trade show where music manufacturers exhibit there latest wares to retailers and the press.  I’m here on behalf of the Donn Bennett Drum Studio (full disclosure – I help...

It’s been a strange start to my birthday celebration with the snow on the 11th.  It’s starting to feel like we live in New England or something.  As you'll see later in the week, I'm planning to celebrate for a few days, but more on that in...

When I moved to Seattle in 1995 everyone said snow was a rare occurrence.  That first winter I sold the Ford Explorer I brought with me from Milwaukee, and got a Mazda Miata.  Perfect for Seattle winters - 10 years ago.  For some reason,...

We had a fun holiday season seeing family and friends.  And we had good times eating!  Since things are getting back to normal around here (Mary goes back to school tomorrow so even her extended break is over) I thought I’d write up a summary...

I’m sad to report that our cat Boots passed away today.  She was 16.    Boots had been pretty spunky over the last several weeks despite her advancing years.  She had even been spending a fair amount of her time hanging out with...

You may have seen Mary’s blog entry about the carport that ended up in our yard.  This was from a wind storm that came through on Wednesday (Mary’s Birthday) during the day.  Well, on Thursday night you’ve probably heard by now, we got the BIG...

Mary celebrated her birthday on the 13th last week.  By all accounts, she had a good day – lots of presents and phone calls (three involved singing!).  We went to a great new restaurant to celebrate.  It’s called Bennett’s Bistro and is...

So it was a tiny bit windy yesterday. OK, more than a tiny bit. In between the falling tree branches, a carport from down the street broke loose and came for a visit. Here's a picture of the newest addition to our house.Fortunately, the owners came by...