I'm going to be in Scottsdale for a week.

I'm so sorry...

My condolences on your being in the Phoenix area. But then, that's where my mother died a month after moving from another state. I think my appreciation for the Suns basketball team is really mostly pity.

I live in Tempe, which is just south of Scottsdale. I'd love to meet up for a drink or dinner or whatever. Where in Scottsdale are you staying?

Oh fuck you people, Scottsdale is nice.

Scottsdale is nice.

If you like strip malls, subdivisions, golf courses, spas, and sprawl, then Scottsdale is very nice indeed.

Or great restaurants, great weather, gorgeous resorts and gorgeous mountains and desert.

It may not be your thing, but not everyone in this world is as militantly anti-yuppie as the metachat/metafilter universe.

great restaurants

Wait, aren't we talking about the town where two of the best restaurants are a "western bistro" that combines the totally commonplace with the pointlessly baroque and a chain steak house?

great weather

Average high temp in July: 104 degrees.

(May is "only" 92. But it's a dry heat, right?)

I'm as pro-yuppie as anybody, but the "Valley of the Sun" is a sprawling hell-hole completely devoid of anything even remotely resembling character.

Now Tucson, on the other hand...

But that's a whole other thing.

Seriously, Mortons? No one worth listening to thinks that's the best steakhouse. Our best steakhouse is Mastros. I ate there last night and had the best desert I've ever had (not mention the steak which was spectacular as always).

I think Roaring Fork is okay. But that's hardly the best restaurant in town.

Places like Barrio Cafe, Tradiciones, Pizzeria Bianco are much more representative of the good culinary things going on in town.

And for weather, yeah it sucks in the middle of the afternoon in the summer. But for the last two months I've been eating most of my dinners on outdoor patios with weather in the 70s. And it's still pretty nice in the evenings during the summer. And I'll gladly take blistering, but dry, summers over rainy or snowy weather, but that's just my personal preference. For six months out of the year, we have some of the best weather there is--it's no coincidence we have the best golf course collection in the country.

And you know what, I wouldn't call where you or anyone else lives a hellhole. I've spent the last three years split between the Bay Area and NYC and I'll probably end up spending my working life in one of those cities, but I'll always miss Phoenix. This is where my family and I have chosen to make our home. There are things I don't like about it (the sprawl, the lack of mass transit, not many career options in my particular field), but I enjoy it for the most part. And when you call it a hell-hole devoid of any character, you might as well say the same about me.

Sorry to derail your thread, rainbaby. I'd love to grab a drink. Where are you staying and will you have a car available?

Your trip to Scottsdale doesn't happen to have anything to do with this, does it? (via Fark, he admits)

I'm staying right in Old Town Scottsdale - at what looks to be a very swank hotel, FWIW. I will have a car. I've never been to the big AZ and I'm excited. It's a business trip, so I'll have a pretty open dance card.

I have made a note to self to email you, mullacc, and Twiggy. If either of your emails isn't in your profiles, mine is.

Rainbaby is going to play her in the made-for-TV-movie.

It looks like I'll be in AZ in June. Too bad I'll miss catching a case of the brain rabies.