May 2026 Recap
May is my birthday month, and this year it carried some weight: I turned 40. For the last few years I have done one big travel adventure…
Chris Vogt – Blog
Software Engineer in San Francisco blogging about code, photography and piano music.
Latest posts
April 2026 Recap
April did not so much arrive as accrete—my partner and I threading one of those San Francisco spring weekends that can feel like a civic…
The Way We Were
I haven't recorded or uploaded anything solo in over a year — the last thing I put up was a jam session with Trevor Clay back in November…
My Website’s API Was Flagged as Phishing
Last Saturday I was working on metrics.chrisvogt.me—the…
January 2026 Recap
January threaded three cities. San Francisco held the first half of the month—Chinatown, North Beach, friends in from New York and out of…
Lullaby of Birdland with Trevor Clay
August 2nd in Tempe, Arizona: I met up with Trevor Clay, a singer based in Phoenix, and we ran through a few songs from my repertoire…
October 2025 Recap
San Francisco's warmest months are September and October—the fog pulls back, the sidewalks fill, and the city's social metabolism picks up.…
September 2025 Recap
September drove north first. Labor Day weekend in Guerneville—the Russian River town that fills up with LGBTQ+ travelers through summer—hit…
July 2025 Recap
July compressed itself around one lateral move south. Francis—met in 2021 when our Celebrity cruise docked in Curaçao—had been planning his…
June 2025 Recap
June arrived with a stack of neglected side projects and no excuse not to address them. teachersalary.info had been drawing a quiet…
Puerto Rico, Colombia & the Southern Caribbean: My 2025 Cruise
April 2025 was twelve nights on Virgin Voyages’ Resilient Lady, a southern Caribbean run departing San Juan, Puerto Rico—Cartagena…
Comparing Teacher Salaries Across the U.S.
My mom taught English as a Second Language when I was growing up, and when she moved from California to Arizona I started noticing how…
Here and Now (Luther Vandross) — 10 Years Later
Ten years ago today, I uploaded a piano cover of Here and Now by Luther Vandross that I recorded in one of the practice rooms at Phoenix…
My Piano Repertoire: Songs, Sheet Music, and Performance Notes
Early 2020: I moved a running list of piano songs from a plain text file into a Google Sheet—easier to track progress, easier to share with…
Piano Practice Sessions: "Ebb Tide" (Instrumental Cover)
About "Ebb Tide" "Ebb Tide" is a song I've played since I was a child. My grandfather, Buddy Milton, was a professional pianist from the…
Exploring the Caribbean on Virgin's Valiant Lady: The Mayan Sol Cruise
July 2024: a 5-night Virgin Voyages Mayan Sol itinerary aboard Valiant Lady, Miami to Costa Maya and Bimini—which would have been a…
How I Run This Blog for Less Than $2 a Month
This website currently costs me $1.79 per month to keep online. If you include my personal email account, I spend $8.99 to maintain my…
Exploring Alaska and Victoria, Canada on my 2022 Family Vacation
September 2022: a 7-night Alaskan cruise with my family aboard Royal Caribbean's Quantum of the Seas, sailing from Seattle through…
Exploring Belize: Ambergris Caye, Caye Caulker, and the Belize Barrier Reef
July 2023, the first week: Belize with my partner on a family trip that needed somewhere outside the country. The week delivered sharks…
Reviving "Starry": An Original Song I Wrote and Recorded
"Starry" is a song I wrote in the 2000s in Tempe, Arizona, when I was renting a band practice room near Arizona State and teaching myself…
The Evolution of My Personal Website
Twelve years is a long time to keep the same hobby project alive. Most personal sites die during a framework upgrade or a busy quarter; this…
Piano Practice Session: "My Love" by Paul and Linda McCartney
"My Love" by Paul and Linda McCartney entered my practice rotation in May 2024. According to Last.fm, I first listened to the Wings 2018…
A House Is Not A Home - Piano Practice Session
"A House Is Not A Home" by Burt Bacharach and Hal David—a Sunday afternoon at the piano, one take, recorded at home. This is one of those…
Cold Little Heart (Michael Kiwanuka) Piano Practice Session
November 11, 2022: a practice session of "Cold Little Heart" by Michael Kiwanuka, written by Brian Burton, Dean Cover, and Michael Kiwanuka,…
Bike Ride Video: Mission to Golden Gate Park
A casual Sunday ride through San Francisco on March 27, 2021. Starting in the Mission District, I followed The Wiggle—a bike-friendly route…
Nights In White Satin (Piano Cover) – The Moody Blues
"Nights In White Satin" by The Moody Blues: a 4-minute 29-second ballad I'd listened to 12 times on Last.FM before I sat down at the piano…
New Music: 2020 Intro
Five years is a long hiatus for something that used to be daily. In my early twenties I rented a band practice room near Arizona State in…
My 2020 Goals
2019 closed and 2020 opened fast. A few things worth noting from the year that just ended: Visited Atlanta, Birmingham AL, New York City…
Christmas 2019 in Los Angeles
Christmas 2019, second half of the week: Los Angeles and its beaches in December light. A few favorite frames from the trip.
WorldPride NYC 2019
New York City, June 2019: Stonewall 50 and the first WorldPride ever held in the United States. The city was packed, the marches were…
Here, There and Everywhere Piano Cover
A jazz rendition of "Here, There and Everywhere" by The Beatles, recorded on a Nikon dSLR and an iPhone and cut together as a multi-camera…
Hello, 🌎
Software engineer in San Francisco, enthusiastic about books, cameras, code, and music. In 2016 I moved to the city; the golden retriever…