January 2026

January, 2026

Yakada Labs

During holiday break, I made some significant improvements in the Yakada AI agent and prepared some demos to show to potential customers. While it is not perfect, AI agent is in a good place to deploy in a real business.

Tango

This month I started Tango lessons for 8 weeks in Adventures in Dancing studio. It makes me happy to learn new things and go through beginner phase to acquire skills. What makes me happy is the journey from beginner to competent state. You can see the most improvement with relatively less effort when you go from absolute beginner to competent beginner. The competent beginner stage is a good stage to make an assessment on if you want to follow it further.

Workout

I'm continuing my progress with "grease the grove" system in addition to my regular workouts. This month I'm doing

  • 5 push-ups
  • 3 chest to bar pullups
  • 5 ring dips
  • 5 goblin squats with 30# kettle-bell

My goal is every day (weekday) to hit ten five rounds.

Magic the Gathering

I started playing MTG with my kids this month. All of us are learning at the moment and we are enjoying the game. On the table game experience is very different and fun than playing on a simulator.

Art

Last night (Jan 10, 2026) we went to see Alex Cuba. Though his songs are in Spanish, he communicates in English. He is a talented musician both vocals and guitar. Real entertainer at the live show. Both of my kids enjoyed the show.

Peace

Last month I intentionally limit my meditation practice to stay mindful during the day. I found that my mind was not centered and calm without morning practice. Therefore, I started back my regular practice this month. I can see the difference and I need the morning practice as way of keeping me centered. I'm following Mahasi tradition for about 6 years now.

Reading

I'm reading these books right now. I found having mutliple books and read one chapter of them each day gives me more time to reflect on what I read. Also, it gives me ability to take notes on the chapter I read.

  1. "Show your work" by Austen Kleon
  • This is good book about how to create following for your work and how and what to share.
  1. "Principles" by Ray Dalio
  • I'm reading life principles and taking notes. I really like his framework where he create principles from the experiences, so that next time he has a decision making process for that situation.
  1. "What do you want out of life" by Valerie Tiberius
  • This is absolutely an unexpected find. I think Libby app gave me this recommendation. I love how she approaches serious questions. For example, values are your most important goals. After she put it that way, it make a lot of sense.
  1. "The Hearth Witche's Guide to Magic & Murder" by Kiri Callaghan
  • This is my non-fiction book for this month. Usually I read this book right before bed, as I'm not concerned with retention. I'm enjoying it so far.
  1. "Kant" by Marcusu Willasheck
  • I'm still in the first chapter, I want to know the principle's of Kant's thinking from this book.