I spent a good (read: probably too much) amount of time getting the spellchecker in TinyMCE to work on my Tomcat (JSP) application. The problem with this plugin is that it’s source code runs on PHP - which Tomcat can’t interpret on it’s own.
Instead, I happen to have another web server daemon (lighttpd/php) running on port 81 already to support a phpMyAdmin installation. Unfortunately, I had previously compiled PHP without XML support, so this involved some hacking.
I’ve been asked before why I’m not wrestling in college. I wrote this before I graduated high school and it’s probably good to have this in my blog despite the fact that I wrote this in April 2003.
Yeah, hm, one would think colleges would be banging on my door. But several factors make up the reasons why I didn’t wrestling in college.
1) The minimum weight class in college is 125, where the guys there are like 135-140 cutting weight to get to that weight class. I’ll never be as big as any of them. They are that big even in D3 college wrestling. I’m just not big enough (i could lift more) to wrestle 125 in college.
2) I achieved everything one can acheive as a high school wrestler. I don’t really have dreams of wrestling college. When I look back at high school, the first thing and the most important thing I will always remember is wrestling. I don’t want to do the same for college. I want to look back on college as the years where I learned how to be a successful adult in society, having fun, and studying my fucking ass off. College wrestling is a huge committment which I don’t really want to committ to. It won’t get me anywhere closer to my degree.
3) Only two of the 5 schools I applied to have wrestling teams - Rennselaer Polytech and Worcester Polytech, both division 3 programs. On the national college level, I’m actually not that good a wrestler. The competition in college is unreal, even at division 3.
4) Division 3 programs can’t (afford to) offer me scholarship money for wrestling.
5) Despite my accomplishments, division 1 and 2 wrestling programs across the country don’t generally recruit wrestlers from New England. They prefer to recruit kids from PA, IA, OH, MN, NJ, and CA, states where wrestling dominates winter sports, where the competition down there would kill any wrestler from new england. Bigger/better wrestlign programs jsut aren’t interested in me.
6) I got offered a very nice academic scholarship to Northeastern University. I have a 3.65 gpa and stuff, so I wasn’t depending on my wrestling alone to get me into/through college.
From here on out, I no longer compete, I’m a college student and a high school All-American in wrestling
Thanks for asking.
I wrote this back in January 2003. I am reposting here for posterity since it’s one of the few expository writings I’ve ever done for fun.
Eating a grapefruit from scratch is a labor of love.
Since the outer skin is pretty tough to penetrate or manipulate, I put it the entire grapefruit in the microwave to soften it up a bit. Then I proceed to stab it with a butter knife to get a break in the skin to start peeling; I was getting nowhere with my fingernails.
After peeling the outer waxy skin, a subdermal layer sits which isn’t very appetizing to eat, so you have to peel this part off also before you can start eating. By now I have invested about nine minutes. Ten more minutes pass before I get the second skin off.
I hold the entire grapefruit in my two fists; it’s now at least fifteen percent smaller with the outer layers gone. Grasping it and pulling apart, I separate it into two. The two seams where I pulled it apart have torn off and revealed the dark, red, meaty looking pulp inside. I suck at these pieces, and a rush of juice flows in my mouth.
I want to be able to eat the rest like orange slices, so I carefully squeeze out the few seeds inside, and pick away at the rest of the inner skin folds. I chew on several of the slices, and set aside a couple for tomorrow’s enjoyment. I’ve spent a good half hour now and only consumed about half of a grapefruit. My hands are sticky and my stomach isn’t hungry anymore. I’ll have to go wash my mouth out now, since my tongue is stinging from the acidic juices.
