look up: cloudy skies
from the upper story,
blot green yard from mind.
Cloudy Sky [Haiku]
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PROMPT: Middle Name
Daily writing prompt
What is your middle name? Does it carry any special meaning/significance?
el matador. No significance whatsoever.
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Yellow Blossom [Haiku]
yellow blossoms
herald the Spring:
fragrance spreads the news.
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DAILY PHOTO: Dramatic Skies Over Georgia Tech
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PROMPT: Last Thing
To think of lifting weights as a means of injury prevention, rather than just a means to build strength or power. I picked up this perspective reading Santino DeFranco’s “Fight Ready” (https://wp.me/p1jv7k-fiK.) I haven’t been a fan of weights for many years now and have long preferred yoga, calisthenics, and other (more minimalist) practices, but I can see the scalability advantage of weights as a means to build a robust body.
Although, I hope this prompt uses “last” in the sense of “most recent,” because I very much hope that I am far from — and couldn’t possibly predict — the last (as in “final”) thing I will have learned.
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Ships at Anchor [Haiku]
ships in harbor,
anchored fore and aft,
await the typhoon.
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The Temple That Never Closes [Haiku]
the streets are dark --
even streetlamps rest -- but
light spills from the temple.
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DAILY PHOTO: Lighthouses, Great & Small
BOOK: “Fight Ready” by Santino DeFranco
Fight Ready: An MMA Coach’s Guide to Losing Weight, Getting Strong, and Kicking Ass by Santino DeFrancoMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher site –St. Martin’s
Release Date: May 19, 2026
MMA fighter turned coach, Santino DeFranco, offers an insightful and pragmatic overview of the process of getting one’s body shipshape, including: getting sleep, dealing with injuries, strength and conditioning practices, nutrition, and more. The book attempts to be of broad appeal, not just relevant to MMA and other competitive fighters, but to athletes of other sports and non-athletes as well. It was not clear to me that the book achieves said broad appeal. One of the most fascinating and engaging chapters dealt with the process of cutting weight, an activity that applies to few outside weight-graded combative sports. (And an activity which the author, with the pragmatic approach that makes the book so useful, attempts to dissuade general readers from attempting.) The book does discuss the calories-in-and-calories-out basics of nutrition in a more generally relevant manner, as well. And there is certainly wisdom to be gleaned for the non-fighter, but, overall, I don’t know that this would be a good book to send a person toward if they were a typically unathletic person trying to lose a few pounds and be in better shape. (Though I do acknowledge a sort of aspirational motivation that a book might have for such readers, particularly UFC fans.) [And it’s completely out of my wheelhouse to know how generally applicable strength and conditioning approaches are for completely different sports, but I can’t help but have doubts.]
That said, I did come across many thought-provoking tidbits of wisdom in this book. The author is clearly one prone to look to the science and established best practices and to challenge the fad-laden fitness influencers and not dive headlong into the trend du jour. The book uses stories and anecdotes to increase the book’s readability and relatability. Here I’d say the results are mixed, but the aforementioned Tracy Cortez weight cut story is one example of when it is done very well.
If you’re curious about the training life of professional fighters and are looking for a few health and fitness concepts you might apply in your own life, I’d highly recommend this book.
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PROMPT: One Question
Would you mind performing coronary revascularization surgery?
Yes, I mind. I’m not a doctor. I have no training whatsoever.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 