Author: psoeth

I have a loving wife and two wonderful kids living in a suburb near Denver, Colorado. I love soccer and doing things with my family.
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Randolph’s Restaurant and Bar, A Great Restaurant in a Hotel

Randolph’s Restaurant and Bar is a great, I will say almost unknown, restaurant just east of downtown at 18th and Grant.
We found this restaurant as part of Denver Restaurant Week. I spoke about it in an earlier post.

It was a great place and we were treated well from the moment we walked in the door. The hostess was nice and helpful in taking coats and giving us an option on a couple seating locations.

The atmosphere was quiet and pleasant, giving my wife and I ample opportunity to have some wonderful conversations without the kids around.

The waiter was quite helpful in helping us choose from the special Denver Restaurant Week menu and they had a wonderful wine selection. My wife and I agreed upon the featured Jean-Luc Colombo Syrah. It was delicious.

My wife had the Trout Patè, Moneybags, and Chocolate Lava Cake. I had the Classic Caesar Salad, Beef Shoulder wrapped in Bacon, and the Chocolate Lava Cake. It was all delicious. The Beef Shoulder was appropriately tender.

The Beef Shoulder came with a spinach creme brulee which I was a little nervous about, but shouldn’t have been. It was as delicious as everything else.

The Randolph Restaurant and Bar is located in the lobby of the Warwick Denver Hotel, named after the William Randolph Herst who commissioned the first Warwick Hotel in Denver. But many people are afraid of restaurants that are in hotels, but you shouldn’t be with this one. It was an all-around pleasent experience.

We will definitely be back. We took a look at their regular menu and there were several things that looked good. And they also had a wonderful patio that looked west toward the skyline of Downtown Denver. If you are downtown, this would be a great place to head for Happy Hour.

Enjoy your visit to Randolph Restaurant and Bar.

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Denver Restaurant Week

Well the annual Denver Restaurant Week is now on and it is a great opportunity to head out and try a new restaurant in Denver.
Denver Restaurant Week is a annual event presented by the Denver Visitor and Convention Bureau to promote restaurants in the metro Denver Area.

Local restaurants put together a special menu for two and give you three courses for $52.80.  It is an excellent opportunity to get out and try a new restaurant in this wonderful town.  It runs through March 2.

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Stikkit has a Learning Curve

Well after fruitless attempts to get my original opportunity to login to Stikkit, I used a different username and email to finally get logged in.
What I am finding out is that it has a learning curve and that you need to be connected 24 x 7 to work in it alot. They do have an option to email stikkit’s, but there is no desktop version.

I will try it for a little bit and see what happens. What I went through, I have to give it a chance.

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Whole Foods buying Wild Oats

Is this good or bad? I don’t think that it can hurt. Take a look at the coverage in Bloomberg and Rocky Mountain News.
I like both Whole Foods and Wild Oats. They provide good food, many items that you can’t get anywhere else, and good service. But the one thing that hurts them is the fact that they are so expensive.

The two chains built their business on selling organic food when it was tough to find organic food. Now that everyone is selling it, mainly Safeway. Safeway has come out with a line of organics that is a lot cheaper than products that are similar at Whole Foods or Wild Oats.  They are even pushing them on their website.

Another store, that is not in Colorado, is Trader Joe’s. They offer similar products and organic food at a lot lower price than Whole Foods or Wild Oats. I bet the competition is quite fierce. I would love to have Trader Joe’s move into the Colorado market.

I may have to check out Vitamin Cottage. These tend to be smaller stores but apparently have good service and prices. That is what Al Lewis of the Denver Post thinks in his blog post this afternoon, “Whole Foods announces plans to swallow Wild Oats whole“. They may be worth a try.

This acquisition can only benefit the two chains. I hope it works. The have a good product and hopes that it gets better.

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Stikkit, Would Like to Try, but NO Confirmation Email

I would like to try Stikkit, but I have received no confirmation email.
It seems like this would be an easy thing to do, but they didn’t send me one and there is no way to send another one.

This looks like a pretty powerful web application and I would like to use it, but I need them to send me another confirmation for my email. I have tried to send a note to help, but they never wrote back. I have sent them another one, but nothing yet.

If you would like to check out what it does, check out this post in 43 Folders by Merlin Mann, Stikkit: Magic words, functional emails, and a handy cheat sheet.

Stikkit, please answer my help request and send me my confirmation email. Or at least create a way to resend it.

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Removing Dog Poop a Priority

In an article in the ColoradoBix Magazine, “Poop removal priority after snow“, they captured the need to get all that dog poop off the backyard.
I am with all of them on this.  We have a golden retreiver and we are having the same problem.  The snow keeps covering it all up and you can’t pick it up.

I was able to get about half the yard picked up a week ago, but the rest of the yard was still covered in snow and I was unable to get there.  I am just hoping we have a little break so that I can get the rest of it picked up.

It is going to be a crazy spring, but let me get the dog poop picked up.

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California, Love the Weather & the Break

I am out in California visiting family and you can’t beat the weather.  After being in Denver where it has been cold and snow has been on the ground for about 60 days, it is nice to be in Northern California with temps in the 70’s.
It has been fun being able to go outside in shorts and take the kids to the park to play.  They have been having fun doing that.  Especially the climbing.  It has been nice to be able to get out of the house and play.

Visitng family has been fun and it has been enjoyable just being able to sit and just veg out.  Not having to worry about shoveling snow or doing projects around the house.  Vegging is fun.

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Chama River Brewing Company a sure bet in Albuquerque

I have eaten and drank at many of this nations microbreweries and I have found one that floats to the top of the list.
The Chama River Brewing Company in Albuquerque, New Mexico has great food, great beer, and great service.

I am in town for business and headed up here for a dinner and a beer.  (Who doesn’t need a beer when they have been working all day).

We were greeted promptly when we walked in the door and sat at our table.  The waiter appeared shortly and provided some great advice on what beers to have.  It didn’t take much for me to go for the Jack Rabbit IPA.  It had good flavor and was really smooth.  One of the better IPA’s I have ever had.

Next came dinner.  It was a new menu and it isn’t posted on their website, but it was the Chorizo Stuffed Pork Chop.  It was delicious.  Had good flavor and spice and was cooked just right.  It was served with Green Chili Polenta and green beans.  It was delicious.

The service was great and not to mention the server walking around throughout the meal with different roles and breads to have before and with you dinner.  I had the chili bread and the beer bread.  Both were delicious. (But my homemade beer bread tastes better.)

All-in-all I will give this restaurant 4.5 stars out of 5.  The only reason that it doesn’t get that last .5 is that I didn’t get to try desert.  I was too full.  But they looked delicious.  Maybe next time.

If you are in Albuquerque, head up to the north side of town and visit the Chama River Brewing Company.  You won’t be disappointed.

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Jobs Calls for DRM Free Music

In a great move, and one that is needed, Steve Jobs released his thoughts on music on the Apple Website today. In this letter, he makes a pretty good case for making all music DRM free. I thinked he summed it up in one paragraph.

“Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.”

DRM hasn’t worked and needs to be abolished. DRM does not hurt the the people are distributing it illegally. It only hurts the people who want to legitimally listen and use the music.

Let’s see what comes from the four music labels and see how they can hold on to their DRM dreams. Many pundits said that this year we would begin to see the end of DRM. I am beginning to believe them. The tidal wave is growing and it will only be a litte bit until it comes crashing down on the four big music labels.