The Benores in Texas

Well tonight is our last night in NYC. But first let me back up and tell you about yesterday. Yesterday we spent hours walking throughout the city. First we a breakfast at Pigalle (pronounced Pig-all-lee). It was a fabulous French bistro whose breakfasts were divine. Then we began our walk. We did far more walking that I am used to, but it was a great way to see the city. We ventured into a few stores, but mostly we just enjoyed Rockefeller Center, 5th Avenue, and Central Park. Our lunch was a quaint little roadside diner in Central Park where we had gourmet pretzels and hot dogs. OK, so it was a hot dog cart. After lunch and the miles of walking we went back to our room to prepare for dinner. We ate at an authentic Cuban restaurant called Havana Central. Then we saw one of the best musicals ever to hit Broadway, Les Mis?rables.

That leads us to today. Two musicals (a double header). We saw both Tarzan and Wicked tonight. And in between all that, we ate surf and turf (lobster and steak) at Bobby Van's. Fantastic! Some theater snobs (aka 'the critics') don't like the Disney/corporate sponsorship of Broadway, but I am in favor of whatever brings Broadway to the masses. Then again, I am just a big fan of all things Broadway. Tomorrow marks our departure from this great city. Hopefully we will not have to wait another five years before we see her again.

Today was the coolest day ever. Shantell and I are spending the Thanksgiving holiday in New York City. This city is very special to us. In February of 2001, I brought Shantell to NYC and asked her to marry me! 5 years later we return as an anniversary trip celebration. (Our 5th anniversary was November 17). We flew in late last night and after settling in our hotel, we ventured out into Time Square. We are currently staying at the Mayfair Hotel, in the heart of the Theater District. The hotel is between Broadway and 8th Avenue on 49th Street. Needless to say, the location is fantastic. Although the weather is rainy and cold (40s), who cares?! We've walked and walked and walked … all over the place. Somehow we are keeping warm and dry.

This morning we watched (with a few thousand others) the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Finding not else much to do on an afternoon, we grabbed lunch and headed back to the hotel. Watched some football, took a nap. Next we headed to the site of the World Trade Center. We went by subway and when we got off the site was ground level with us. We ventured above ground but it was not as impressive as being on the subway level. It stirred those same emotions we all felt on 9/11. After that we went to dinner at Salmon River. Yes, they had turkey at that seafood restaurant. It was fabulous. Finally we made it to the Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Spectacular … and spectacular it was. The Rockettes were both beautiful and talented. The live nativity scene at the end, reminded all of the true meaning of Christmas. Now, I write to you from the hotel room of today's adventures. When we get back, perhaps some pictures will added. But for now, it time for bed. Tomorrow should be another adventure.

One of my favorite development tools is CFEclipse. It is a plugin to Eclipse, a cross-platform IDE. Adobe also uses Eclipse for it's flex development software. Now I know Adobe developers use CFEclipse (I am sure they still use Dreamweaver too – as do I). I also know Adobe supports Eclipse. I just wonder why Adobe does not do more to support CFEclipse and its sole developer Mark Drew. This is a guy who spends his free time helping make ColdFusion development better through CFEclipse. Why should Adobe care? Because geeky developers like me yearn for an IDE that is code centric and not WYSIWYG centric. So Adobe, please go throw some cash at CFEclipse. Or perhaps even pay for Mr. Drew's travel cost to an Adobe conference here in the states. Hey you could even be like Google and pay developers to develop open source software.

For more on this discussion visit Mark Drew's Site.