Time is flying, Fall / Oct 2026 Update - It's Still Warm Outside

Certainly has been a minute since posting last in April 2026 when I turned 41. Things have been going well on the health journey front and have been learning and evolving more with the paradigm shift of AI. Let’s get you caught up in the last half of year or so!

Quick Reference Catch Up

Will use this section just as a catch up before digging into two particular sections. Was able to connect with my friends and family across the six months. Had a few work trips here and there, a birthday, an oyster fest, a wedding, and a GT Roomie Reunion all getting on flights for. Took the Rivian on the second roadtrip, this time to Nashville to visit my bestie and his new daughter. Family and Kofi are doing well. Also found out that my Chase Sapphire Reserve has $!50 bi-annual Stub Hub credits so was able to catch a pair of Braves Games [have not been to one since 2017]. Of course had to cap this off with a every four months with a pine straw and mulch reset in the yard.

Washington DC, Nashville, Chicago, Menlo Park, Cancun, ATL

South East Asia Trip 2K26 - In Progress

This is the third year in a row have been taking advantage of Singapore Airline’s Black Friday Sale and back in SE Asia. Returned this year to Bangkok [was here in 2025 also]. I have a system down that works pretty well.

1. Book on Singapore Airlines Black Friday Sale. These are legit savings for business class. Typically get a business class fare for under $4k for the following year. Made it all the way to Gold on SQ and SQ does not fly to ATL. You do have to do a positioning flight but worth it. Have done positioning flights out of IAH/JFK/SEA on SQ.

2. Since having a year, can stack my Amex Plat FHR and Chase Sapphire Reserve EDIT credits. Divide the trip into how many annual bookings there are and just spread the reservations into that. Collect credits and new spending. Can’t book back to back same hotel to be safe. Can explore different brands. Also can swap out pre-pay and post-paid as additional credits roll in to price protect you. Got to experience three brands I never stayed at in 2026 all thanks to the programs.

3. Enjoy the time off!

This is my fourth trip to Thailand and I really love Thailand. I have been to Thailand in 2012 [first time, spent a month in and out of TH], 2016 [Wedding], 2025 [SQ Deal] and now 2026 [SE Deal]. I do owe it to a friend who I made when on my project in NYC for bringing a group of us down and showing us her home town of Bangkok. Because of that foundation, my 2026 trip is very smooth. Even brought my sister in 2026 for her first time in Asia to explore Bangkok. Let’s take a look at the four trips to TH over the years.

• 2012: W Koh Samui and Bangkok in my Jurassic Park Hat.

• 2016: JJ’s wedding in BKK [our original 2012 host in BKK, getting hitched!].

• 2025: Bought my first piece of Artwork and my first Two Star Michelin spot, Gaa.

• 2026: In BKK with my sister, enjoying the city views.

Health Journey - 2H 2026

Reflecting back on the last six months, I am really proud. Certainly been on this journey since mid 2025 so crossed into my first year.

• 2025 Trip to Bangkok in Sept 2025, decided to exercise every day, was easy at the hotels and habit stuck when returning home.

• April 2026 - October 2026

  • Exited Obese BMI.

  • Multiple quarters not in a diabetic A1C.

  • Concluded my GLP-1 journey for now.

Even another win, finally my parents singed up for a gym this second half of 2026. Well more I took their AMEX and signed them up at Lifetime online. Proud of them that they both go twice a week just for some movement. Growing up did not have a good role model at home for prioritizing activity for health [vs just work]. They let me know because of my persistence and consistency that they were inspired. Even my mother started her GLP-1 journey under doctor supervision and has been having positive results so far.

Left Apr 2026, Right Oct 2026.

AI Journey - 2H 2026

Using AI for myself has really accelerated in the last six months. Reflecting my AI usage between April 2026 and October 2026, have been been digging into AI more for work. Let’s compare the two time periods.

As of April 2026

Back in April 2026, my AI usage was still a majority on my personal/consumer side. I started using ChatGPT in Sept 2025, so this is Sept 2025 - April 2026.

• Using AI to track my fitness and nutrition daily.

• Using AI to validate my health goals and any improvements I can make.

• Using AI to track certain real-estate trends.

• Created this sample for my learning.

  • https://github.com/ravilach/Kendrick-Labernetes

  • Created via GitHub Copilot.

  • Focus was more of the code generation itself, testing more after the fact and orchestrated by myself. Same with build, packaging, and running. This was handled by me after code generation.

• Started leveraging AI to start to grok our large amount of release notes into consumable formats.

  • Google Notebook LLM to summarize, Claude Company Format Skill to generate a style deck.

As of Oct 2026

My AI use has certainly evolved as I have gained more skills and started digging into using AI more on my professional side.

• Created this sample app for my learning.

  • https://github.com/ravilach/saas-product-investigator-learn-ai

  • Focus was on the AI ecosystem such as:

    • Evaluations, how well was the AI producing the app overall.

    • Created with our Enterprise Claude on AWS BedRock.

    • MCP use and integration.

    • Leveraging AI to test, build, and deploy application stack.

• Generating PRDs with Atlassian AI/MCP and Claude.

• Formatting documents and creating renditions of docs.

• Using as one perspective for decisions, asking AI for blind spots for anything that I could have missed trying to gain one more perspective.

• Started setting AI Direction for the team.

  • AI or Factory centric model for work and deliverables.

  • How we interact with the public using AI against or with our stack.

  • Thinking about AgentEx how this compliments DevEx.

• Started to use MCPs/Skills/Memories more.

• Using AI to learn AI skill sets aka AI on AI.

• Started moving away from using Google as the “answer box” and first queries moved to ChatGPT [personal] or Claude [work].

  • SEO -> GEO

Certainly have been leveraging AI on a daily basis now. As I look to what the next iteration looks like, will look to see if there are any automatable tasks an agent can take. Excited to see how the paradigm evolves!

Onwards!