Rob's Place

Valley Ho, Saturday and Sunday

Saturday started with a trip to the Az-Tex Hat Company to get my old hat that I bought on Catalina Island cleaned and to buy a new hat, pictured above.  The woman who helped us knew absolutely everything there is to know about hats, and I learned a lot.  Plus, I found a pretty cool everyday hat.

We walked from the hat store to Arcadia Farms Cafe.  There were two wedding showers and one baby shower while we were there (or was it two baby showers and one wedding shower, I get confused).  In any case, we got a pitcher of fresh lemonade (made nice and tart) and enjoyed a relaxing lunch.  For the appetizer we got the baked goat cheese with red peppers and olives.  Then Kris had the Wild Mushroom, Spinach, and Goat Cheese Tart while I had the Chicken, Wild Mushroom, and Leek Crepes.  The tart was perfectly cooked, and the crepes were stuffed full of goodness.  Mine came with a basil oil, which used fried basil for a nice crispy texture.  Both were excellent (yes, we know how to share).

By the end of lunch the temperature headed over 105, so we walked back to the hotel and the wonderful, wonderful OH Pool.  We spent most of the afternoon there, reading our nooks and having drinks.  I had a Scottsdale Surprise and a Moscow Mule (sort of a Lynchburg Lemonade with Vodka).  We swam and read and hung out until it was time for dinner.

Could that be POSH, only our favorite restaurant in all of Scottsdale?  Why I think it is.  Our server was kind enough to write down all our courses, which I thought was sweet.

Amuse: Heirloom Tomato Sorbet

Course 1

Rob: Arugula and Watermelon Salad with White Wine and Bee Pollen
Kris: Local Zucchini Salad w/ Pumpkin Seed Tumeric Dressing and Pecorino Chile Threads

Course 2

Rob: Uni Panna Cotta w/ Sweet Soy Sauce, Snap Peas, Pickled Onion, and Raw Uni
Kris: Kumomoto Oysters, Dashi Gelee, and Radish Sprouts

Course 3

Rob: NZ Snapper Shrimp, Maitake Mushrooms, and Chinese Long Beans
Kris: Black Sea Bream, Miso Glazed Baby Turnips, and Beach Mushrooms and Mint

Course 4

Rob: Frog Leg in a Bacon Bean Sauce w/Heirloom Tomato Slices
Kris: Wild Boar Bacon w/Frenchiladas and Salsa Verde w/Quail Egg

Course 5

Rob: Venison, Mesquite Dusted Baby Carrots and Cauliflower Puree w/ Chive Oil
Kris: Lamb w/Green Curry Coconut Sauce, Red Bok Choi, Lemongrass, and Cubed Carrots

Course 6

Rob: Valdeon, Castallanos Cheese
Kris: Raspberry Chocolate Tart w/Lavender Honey Ice Cream

 Wines

Rob: Boutari, Kretikos, Greece and Tempranillo
Kris: AZ Stronghold

Kris also ordered a Salzerac, which, as you may or may not know, comes in a glass washed with Absinthe.  Wouldn't you know it, they saved the glass wash and gave it to Kris as well.  (Heh heh).  So she had a Salzerac with an Absinthe Chaser.  After dinner, walking around the garden, she got some serious color amplification effects:

Kris: Is that flower red?
Rob: Yes, it's quite red.
Kris: But is it really red?
Rob: Well, it is a rather pure red.
Kris: Is it glowing?
Rob: No.  That must be the Absinthe.

After dinner we headed over to the Desert Stages Theater (just a half block away) to see the play Art.  It was well done and quite enjoyable, about three friends who struggle when one friend buys a $100k White painting (Kris says it was all white, I say there were variations).  It was quite silly.

After the play it was time to go back to the Hotel, valet the MINI, and walk to the bars.  We first tried Kashimierz, which is hidden, and which we found, but there was no where to sit or stand.  It was packed.  Very nice, cozy dark place with a cool vibe.  So we walked down to Mabel's on Main Street, and had a good time drinking (a nearly perfect Vodka Martini, Grey Goose of course) and people-watching.

Around midnight we headed back to the hotel and hung out at the bar.  I asked the bartender if he made a good Old Fashioned and ordered two: boy did he!  They were perfect!  We then continued to people-watch, including a guy who completely struck out with this chick who was into him (she was giving him all the right signals and he was talking about spreadsheets), and this male couple who were all over each other, having a ball (ha!).  They were behind me, and at one point Kris says, "They're playing with each other's iPhones!"  "Is that a euphemism?" I asked.  They were the second happiest couple in the bar!

The next morning we sleep in a bit, then head back to the pool, which we have all to ourselves.  The kitchen opens at 10am, so Kris gets a huge bowl of fruit (blackberries the size of walnuts!) and I get an Italian Panini.  We drink water, eat, and swim, letting the hangovers fade away.  At around noon we checkout, get the car out of valet, and drive the 20 minutes back home.

I must say that this was an excellent in-town vacation.  We ate at excellent restaurants, managed to stay buzzed or drunk most of the time, and had a blast!  Valley Ho!

Valley Ho, Friday Night

For our 21st anniversary, Kris and I decided to take advantage of the low resort rates in Scottsdale in July, and have a vacation in our own home town.  Valley Ho is a 1956 hotel that was recently renovated and turned into a trendy resort.  They've kept the mid-century modern vibe from their early days, which, oddly enough, is fashionable again. 

Because it was an anniversary, we decided to stay in one of the Terrace Suites. Here's Kris lounging in the living room.

 Here's the master bedroom.

Here's one of the two sinks in the bathroom.  The bathroom was as big as our master bedroom at home.  It also had a two-person shower and a soaking tub.

There was a porch that wrapped around the whole unit. 

This is the view of the terrace suite from the ground.  Notice that it is at the end of one of the motel buildings.  It was very isolated and quiet.

The first thing we did was have Champagne and chocolate covered strawberries sent up.  Yum.  The Champagne was Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin.  It was very good.

The second thing we did was run down to the pool to start drinking.  They had a live band (Elvis Before Noon) and a full bar and a kitchen that did everything from hummus to burgers to shrimp ceviche, all pool food of course.  Since it was already 4pm, we just started drinking.  This brings me to one of the benefits of staying in a hotel in your town: you can walk everywhere.  So we kept a nice level on at all times.

Rob = Mojito, Mojito (yes, i know, but it was a really good mojito)

Kris = Scottsdale Surprise (sort of a Cape Cod with peach schnapps)

A good friend suggested Grazie, an Italian/pizza place, and so we went there our first night.  It was excellent.  Kris tried the Caesar Salad, since we've been on a kick to find the best Caesar in Scottsdale.  Grazie's was flavorful, nice level of anchovies, good croutons.  The only down side is they chopped the romaine, which is easier to eat but isn't as cool as getting huge slabs of lettuce.  I had the Caprese Salad, and it was very good, except that it needed more basil, but then when I get a Caprese what I want is a basil salad with tomatoes and mozzarella.  The pizza we had was the Dame Edna: arugula, prosciutto, and PR.  It was excellent.  The crust was almost a cracker it was so thin, and it was perfect.

For wine we tried the Castello di Nieve Grignolino.  Very bright and fresh.  We both liked it a lot.  This is the first trip we've done since Kris decided to try wines other than Riesling, so we decided to be bold.  It paid off.

After the wine, we made our way toward a bar on Stetson and 5th, but the pool drinks and wine had rendered these two lightweights completely blasted.  So we stopped on Marshall and 5th, where there's this very cool fountain with four horses and sat and talked for two hours or so.  Part of the conversation I do not remember, but Kris assures me that she enjoyed it (she loves playing with my mind when it's gone) and that I said nothing embarrassing.  Here's hoping, because those neurons are blank.

At 9:30pm we headed south to The Comedy Spot, and failed spectacularly at finding it (they had their lights off??) because the map I made for our celebration was mostly "approximate", meaning that the dots representing bars and restaurants and such "might be closer than they appear in mirror".  In any case we met a very nice bicycle carriage driver who offered to drive us there.  Since we had time to spare, we asked him for a tour, and he drove us all over Old Town.  It became apparent, during his spiel, that he too, was wasted.  His driving was extremely wobbly, though I must say we did not crash.  We also made an abrupt U-turn after discovering a cop car in our path.  Hm.  We had fun and got back to the Comedy Shop, where I paid the man enough to get himself another bottle of whatever fun he was having that night.

[You will notice here a distinct lack of photographs, owing to the blood alcohol levels of both me and my lovely wife.]

The comedians were funny but the drinks were abysmal at the Comedy Spot.  Kris and I kept making really flattering comments about them using the word "well" (as they were definitely well-quality): "That was a well-made drink.", "Well, that was wonderful.", "Are you well? This drink isn't", etc.  After the first drink, I gave up and drank Heineken the rest of the night; how can you screw up a beer, right?

After the show we danced our way back to the hotel and called it a night around midnight.  I never saw our bicycling friend again.

Next time, Saturday.

Check My Math

So it's been a while since I did any probabilities, and I needed to figure out some sort of measure for the occurence of particular cards in the card game I'm designing.  So follow my logic and see if I did this right.

You have a deck of n cards, from which you will draw a hand of h cards.  There are dozes of card types in the game.  For a particular type, say there are k copies of the card in the deck.  I want to know the chance on the first draw of five cards that you have at least one of cards of that particular type.

So I want to solve for the opposite case and then subtract from 1.  Now the problem is: what is the chance that you will draw a hand containing none of the cards of a particular card type.

a) Chance of not drawing cards that occur k times in a deck of size n into a hand of size h:

(n - k) Choose h / n Choose h

Where the function n Choose m = n! / (m! (n - m)!) and is used to determine how many combinations there are of n items taken m at a time.

b) So we invert the probability and get:

1 - ((n - k) Choose h / n Choose h)

The test values look good, but I want to make sure the math is right.  If you have a deck of 64 cards and a given card has 8 copies, the chance of drawing it into your first hand of 5 cards is 0.48, which seems about right.  If a card only has one copy, it's 0.077.

Anyone else whose statistics is less than 20 years rusty have any clue?

POSH - LIke Having an Iron Chef Cook for You

Last night we went to POSH near downtown Scottsdale.  They hand you a list of available proteins and ask you to cross off any you don't like and list other ingredients you either don't like or are allergic to.  Then they make up courses for you from the ones they've planned that evening.  Kris and I had different courses, and it looked like there were about 4 choices per course that night.  So it's not quite prepared for each guest, but everyone at a four-top would have a unique dish.

Their protein list included standards like kobe beef and quail, as well as some entries I haven't seen elsewhere, like skate and kangaroo!  I left mine blank, and Kris crossed off shrimp (she doesn't like them).  We chose the 6 course meal and they started bringing us plates.

Rob's Meal
Amuse - Apricot poached in red wine with fresh mint
Salad - Pea tendrils with picked red onion and goat cheese
Appetizer - Frog legs with a bacon reduction
Fish Course - Salmon with morrel mushrooms and fava beans
Main Course - Braised short ribs with broccoli and a broccoli cream sauce
Cheese Course - A firm goat, a soft cow, and the best blue I've had in ages (from Spain)
Dessert - Buttermilk panacotta with fresh berries with spun sugar + chocolate pate with white chocolate lace
Snack - Pistachio shortbread cookie, merange cookie, and pistachio brittle
Final - Meyer lemon lolipop made on the antigriddle

Kris's Meal
Amuse - Apricot poached in red wine with fresh mint
Salad - Micro-greens with cherries and blue cheese
Appetizer - Hamachi in a yellow tomato broth
Fish Course - Skate with braised onions and carrots
Main Course - Kobe medallion with a scallion reduction
Cheese Course - A firm goat, a soft cow, and the best blue I've had in ages (from Spain)
Dessert - Buttermilk panacotta with fresh berries with spun sugar + dark chocolate wafers with a white chocolate mousse filling
Snack - Pistachio shortbread cookie, merange cookie, and pistachio brittle
Final - Meyer lemon lolipop made on the antigriddle

The wine list was very complete as well.  I started with a Pino Noir and then shifted to a Pecorino (which I'd never had) later.

New Eiben Arts Site Up

I've finally gotten around to producing a catalog of prints for sale and created the new Eiben Arts site where our photography, painting, and writing can be found.  It can be found here.  I've closed all the existing limited editions and moved the first batch of my current prints into a legacy catalog.  The new limited editions will all be singletons, 1 of 1, and each piece will be unique.  I'll also be implementing some stylistic changes that I've been experimenting with.

Outdoor Concert

We left our hibernation long enough to go to an outdoor concert, now that the temperature has dipped below 100.  We saw Augustana, Maroon 5, and Counting Crows.  As usual, Kris and I overprepared by bringing hats and extra water and sunblock, all for naught of course.  Two thunderstorms rolled through during the evening, one before the show and one during an intermission.  Luckilly our seats were under the awning anyway, so we didn't get wet nor would we have been fried by the sun.

I like all three bands, but our favorite was Augustana, the opening band.  That is so like us.

While we were hibernating this summer we bought some more furniture to replace our Ikea placeholders, built two gaming machines, and fixed a toilet.  Yay for house maintenance.  I'll have to get some photos up of the new living room layout.

Now that fall has arrived and we can go outside again, the hiking will be ramping up soon.  I'll have more updates then.

[kris] Catching up

Wow, has it been 3 weeks?  Well, here's a hiking news recap.

Two weeks ago, we re-hiked Lost Dog, without Rob's camera, and we made it to our goal in good time!  The lookout affords some really cool views of the city.

 

Last week we made our first attempt of the season of Pinnacle Peak.  It was more difficult than we were used to -- 550' from highest to lowest point, including a 300' saddle "dip", in 1.75 miles, and then turn around and  do it again to get back.  Made it about halfway.  That halfway included getting to the highest point on the trail...

and I found my new house.  What do you think?

 

Yesterday we tried Pinnacle again, this time with the goal of getting to the saddle and back with as few breaks as possible.  Wow that was tough, but we made it!  So that was 300', twice, in a little more than 2 miles.  Getting there took 30 mins, getting back took 34, so about an hour of hiking total.   Luckily there were nice overlooks a bit down from the high point on both sides, with markers pointing out different peaks, where we could have a good long rest.

Oh, and I have to show you this.  Near the start of the trail is a really cool saguaro.  Check it out!

[kris] Lost Dog

So, we took the advice of one of Rob's hiking friends at work and checked out Lost Dog Wash Trail this weekend.  How was it?  You'll have to check the photolog to find out.

(BTW yes, we did go on that 4 mile hike last weekend.  4.5 miles actually.  Had a great time.  Didn't bring the camera, though.)

Lookout Mountain Redux

Hello from the top of Lookout Mountain in North Phoenix.  It only took us 3 hikes to make it to the top, and we did it in 40 minutes, which is 10 minutes better than the last time.

It was a perfect day on the mountain, with the terrain all strangely green instead of brown.  You can see the other peaks around Lookout mountain behind me, and, of course, the city.

Kris tried to take a picture of our house, which is about 6 miles that way (6 blocks).  It's hard to make out, but it's somewhere in that direction between here and the far mountain range.

This is a view of Shangrila, the valley that we don't quite know how to get into.  We wonder if the people who live down in that valley even know they're in a big city.  Notice all the green.  Very odd.

Finally, Phoenix is known for the brown cloud that hangs around, since there's usually so much dust in the air.  On this day the clouds around the city proper were white, not brown.  It still amazes me to be standing on a mountain top right smack in the middle of a city of 3.5 million people.  This weekend we're changing altitude for endurance.  Instead of a 1/2 mile 500' ascent, we're going for a 4 mile, 200' ascent.  Should be fun.

[kris] Back In The Saddle

We're back!  After what seemed like an eternity of playing "Pass-The-Cold," Rob and I are finally both healthy at the same time.  As an added bonus, the Phoenix winter is over, and really nice weather is here.  (I'm wearing shorts right now, not to gloat or anything.)  To celebrate, we decided to hike to the saddle of our old friend Lookout Mountain -- and it had a surprise waiting for us.

Green!  The mountain was completely green.  Such a change from the brown mountain we'd been hiking in the fall.  It was totally worth the runny nose as my allergies asked, "What is that stuff coming up out of the ground?"

If you look closely, you'll see that it's not actually grass.  Most of it is a cool light-green scrub interspersed with yellow wildflowers.  (We call them "wildflowers" out here, not "weeds.")

Every once in a while we'd see these little purple flowers.  Not sure what they are, but we liked them. 

The only spots that weren't green were the trails and the rockfalls.  It made it easy to follow the trail, except where a rockfall actually crossed the trail.  Some (crazy) people just followed the rockfalls up.

When we finally reached the saddle, we found that even Shangri-La had burst to life.  Perhaps they were preparing a Spring Festival with streamers and candles hung from the trees, and garlands in their hair.  OK, probably not :)