1. Stop eating so damn much!
I eat a lot. I eat far too much actually. I’m not even sure what I weigh anymore since my gym, cheap Planet Fitness, is the only gym in the world that does not have a scale, so I have gone over two years without being mindfully aware of what I weigh. I estimate around 250 pounds, which his 25 more pounds than I what wish to weigh. But using technology, I have identified the problem, and as previously stated, I eat a lot.

Using loseit.com, I was able to look at my last 6 months of eating. From July through September, I consumed well under 3,000 calories per day, which according to loseit.com, is my maintenance calorie amount. Needless to say, it was around the end of the summer that people started telling me that I had lost weight. Of course, the compliments immediately go to my head, and from October through December, it appears that I was consistently over the 3,000 calorie mark.

Well, with that information, I know exactly what my goal should be for not eating too much. To put it simply, I cannot allow myself to eat more than 3,000 calories per day. Now for the record, as if you care, my net calorie goal is 2,100 calories per day, but I can eat more if I exercise more. This leads me to my next resolution…

2. Exercise more!
In July, I was awful. In August and September, I was respectable. In October, I was great. But in November and December, the exercise ceased to exist at a time when my calorie-intake went above 3,000. Looking at the data, it appears that I averaged 180 burned calories per day, or 1,264 calories per month.

One thing that I have learned with more work experience is that you can’t expect significant gains all at once. They are nice to have, and you should always aim to do your best, but more times than not, pushing to do something that’s not realistic ends in despair. The unrealistic is more likely to happen when it’s the product of work effort, not necessarily planning.

Thus, instead of giving myself some unrealistic workout goal, I am aiming for a slight increase in the numbers. October was my best month, when I exercised for an average of 237 calories per day. I think about a 25% increase is not too much to ask, and that will take me to an average of 300 calories per day. That’s not a huge amount, and I hope to do more, but that’s my goal for the entire year, and a 25% increase over 365 days is definitely going to make a big difference—especially as I intend to be more frugal with the calories-burned that I record in the gym.

3. Spend less on food!
I started using loseit.com in July, but I had mint.com at the very beginning of 2011, and thank God I did. Looking at it, I actually did quite well with my spending. I wish I made more money, but who doesn’t? Still, I had one blimp on my yearly report—I spent way too much on food. Essentially, I budgeted an average of X/month for my food budget, and for the year, I was 40% over it. Yeah, I know, that’s really bad…especially given what my food budget is. It’s really the only thing I spend money on. I’m not a big shopper, nor even a big techie that needs a lot of gizmos and gadgets. Food is where my money goes, but even though it’s about my only weakness, it’s still a weakness that not unlike shopping for a Beverly Hills Housewife, will cost my tons of money if I don’t get it under control.

Again, using my knowledge, I know I can’t expect to achieve my previous budget amount of X dollars per month. It was just unrealistic. So I have upped it for this year, and now my budget is set at about 15% more than what it was last year. Essentially, I am asking myself to spend 17% less than what I spend on food last year, which believe it or not, equates to thousands of dollars. I think I can do it, especially since being in school will help me save money on food 2 or 3 times a week.

4. Write consistently!
Even though going after my MBA would suggest that I am getting away from the writing game, nothing could be further from the truth. I fully intend to keep writing, and I have some goals in mind to hold myself to. Here they are, no explanations needed.

UzoNYC: 1 post per week
UzoNYC: 100 Things to Do in New York City
Black Oak Nights: 1 post per week
Zo Knows: 2 posts per week
MediaMan: 1 post per week
Guest Posts: 2 posts per week
HesGottaHave It: 1 post per week
MBA Voyage: 3 posts per week
HarlemRising: 5 posts per week
New Blog: 1 post per week

As you can see, not everything is figured out, and that already adds up to at least 17 posts per week, not including the additional 100 I will have to do for Things to Do in New York City. Am I setting myself up to fail? Perhaps. But to help me achieve the goal, I won’t hold myself to having to write long posts, or even having to write some of the post myself. I know being in school will make this task even more daunting, but I do like to write, so hopefully my passion will lead me.

5. Get my damn productions underway.
I said this last summer, and the summer got the best of me, but I do have several literary things I want to accomplish that will help me get my career in media and entertainment going to.

First, I have to do a web series. I know I have the ability to market online, now I just need something to market. If I have to write the dog on series myself, then I will!

Second, I have a great idea for scripted drama, and I need to get that pitched in time for pick-up season. That means I have to have the pilot written, along with the “Bible” (an industry term) by the end of the summer. I have 2 or 3 weeks off from school at the end of August—I think I see my window!

Third, I also really want to work on getting an independent movie up. Again, I think I know film really well, and I have the chops to market a low-budget indie. It’s time to at least have a script done by the end of the year.

6. Read more…
I really allowed myself to get too rapped up in my day-to-day stuff, which I just can’t accept as someone who wants to be a future business leader. All around, I have to work on that, but one of the things that will help me with that is making sure I take more time to read. While I really want to make sure I’m keeping up with Variety, the NYTimes, The Economist and all of the blogs in my Google Reader account, the fun stuff is important too. I’m sure there is a book club at Columbia, something like that would even be of interest to me. How I gauge this goal is TBD, but you know I will.

7. Enjoy people!
Again, getting caught up in the day-to-day stuff didn’t really allow me to enjoy the people around me and the people who aren’t around me. I once read a fortune placemat at a Chinese restaurant and it said something about people born in the year of the rat. Essentially, it said that I would be really good at making friends but not keeping them. To this day, I think that fortune has been too true for my liking. I have to be better at paying attention to the people that I really like and care about. I think part of what I struggle with is that because I don’t require much of any attention, that my friends don’t require any attention of me. And maybe for some of my friends that is the case, but in the long run, you aren’t going to keep many friends by seeing each other whenever you see them and not going out of way to pay attention to them. I’ll be better at that in 2012. Again, how to gauge that is TBD, but this may be something I just have to look at subjectively.

In Conclusion…
Alright, that’s enough for New Year’s resolutions. Seven is probably 4 or 5 too many, so I probably overextended myself. I actually probably contradicted everything I said by going for 7 resolutions after I said planning for big jumps in production is not a good practice. But the goals themselves are not only ones I’m already working on, but are ones that probably aren’t too far out of reach anyway, so hopefully, my goals are just on the money.

No related posts.

I sit here before you today a man humbled.

Last May, I promised to embark upon a summer journey that would have your boy accomplish 100 things in New York City that I had yet to do during my nine-year stint in the city. Here we are, in late October, 3 months since my last post, and I accomplished a mere 21 activities.

Was it laziness?

Lack of money?

Lack of time?

Or just lack of caring?

Many people start things with a severe enthusiasm only to find themselves not giving a damn about the very task they were swooning over just moments ago. But that’s not what happened here. Indeed, it wasn’t a loss of concern that happened to me, it was those two old faithfuls: money and time.

Not that I went broke or embarked upon some unbelievably time-consuming journey to save my life or someone else’s, but life did catch up with me. I was promoted at work just a few days before my last post in July, and while that came with additional capital, it also came with an adjustment period I had not planned on embarking upon in the middle of my “100 Things To Do In the Summer” quest. On top of that, I also endured some major costs that I had not anticipated—costs I will certainly detail for you all later.

That said, I really have no real excuses to offer. Had I been more diligent about my time this past summer, I could have made that list happen. Especially, in July, when I really let time get the best of me. And of course, there is no excuse for an update on this not coming until nearly 2 months after Labor Day, the due date for my summer list.

So for all that, I apologize. I hope I have not lost the one (maybe 2) readers that I have. I promise I will continue my quests to conquer this city in the months to come, and I will do my damndest to embark upon a new “100 things” next summer. The blog will thrive on many other topics until then, and I hope I can keep you around for the ride.

My sincerest apologies,

Uzo Ometu
A Man Humbled

Related posts:

1. Changes to My Summer List of Things To-Do
2. Uzo’s Summer in NYC: 100 Days, 100 Things, 100 Posts
3. 100 Things, 100 Days, 100 Posts: The List!

Hudson River Cafe

I don’t think there is another place in the world where the people love a good brunch as much as New Yorkers do. People here clamor for brunch, arranging some of their biggest, most social, most important events around 11am to 2pm on a weekend, just so they can enjoy choosing between a burger and pancakes for their first meal of the day.

And while I know that brunch is nothing more than the weekend version of a local diner at noon during the weekday lunch rush, I still enjoy having my pancakes and cocktails from time to time.

So I finally got out to a place on “100 Things to do in NYC” list that I have always been meaning to try during brunch time: Hudson River Café. Hudson River Café (697 West 133rd St, Harlem, NYC) is located a pretty good ways away from the nearest public transportation option at 133rd Street and the Hudson River. However, it’s outdoor seating and views of the water make it worthy of the trip uptown—or in my case, the trip a few blocks and avenues away.

As for the food, it wasn’t “horrible,” but the entree options on the brunch menu certainly were not eye-opening. Their menu had just enough variety that most people could find something on it worthy of eating. My vegetarian girlfriend went with the French toast, of which Hudson River did provide a pretty big helping. However, their French toast was no better than any other decent rendition I have had in the past.

I had the 8 oz. Kobe Beef burger. Unlike the French toast, the burger did not live up to even the most lenient of standards. I would have much rather have paid $25 (the cost of the prix fixe menu) and made 20 cheeseburgers at home. Hudson River Cafe’s burger was bland, tasteless, and didn’t come across as being 8 oz. worth of beef either. It was probably that frozen Kobe beef you can get at Trader Joe’s, and if that’s the case, shame on you Hudson River Café!

The fact that Hudson River Café has an unlimited drink special as a part of its prix fixe brunch did salvage their bad-to-mediocre food service. I went with the classic Mimosa, which had a nice little kick to it. Unfortunately, as we experienced with everything else we required from our waitress, we had to wait quite a while to have our drinks refilled. That may be okay when I’m ordering drink by drink, but when they have an all-you-can-drink special going on, Hudson River Café should know that they can’t be stingy with the champagne and orange juice.

In my opinion, Hudson River is a place you should definitely try out, especially if you’re interested in being around an urban, diverse, upwardly-mobile crowd. Again, the views and setting are great on a summer afternoon, and those things alone make Hudson River Cafe worth the trip uptown. However, if like me, you don’t find the food or service to your liking, I doubt you will need to check this place out more than once. I may give it another shot sometime in the future, but that future is a long, long ways away from the summer of 2011, with many other brunch venues in between.

This post was originally published on SipNsizzle.com.

Related posts:

1. Summer Activity #1 – Hudson Terrace Extravaganza
2. Summer Activity #7: Macondo, Food, Fun, Friend
3. Summer Activity #3 – NYC’s Intrepid Museum, Columbia Style

International African Arts Festival @ Commodore Park

The International African Arts Festival has been occurring for over 40 years now, and after 9 years in New York City and 27 years on this Earth, this July 4th was the first time I had ever gone.

To say the least, this annual festival is extremely popular and extremely interesting. You have clothes being sold, food being cooked, songs being performed and speeches being spoken. Culture and art just filled the air, and rarely do you see such high levels of artistry in a gathering this big.

If you were looking for some enlightening knowledge, you could find that here as well. People were preaching about the trials and tribulations for Africans back in the motherland and here in the United States. There were many influential people from the local community there as well to get out their messages. From council men to wanna-be governors, this place was full of influential Brooklynites and those from other boroughs and areas as well.

At my own doing, I was pretty drained by the time I made it to the festival. So there was a lot of participation or food consumption out of me. Still, I saw some interesting things that definitely have encouraged me to go back next year—this time with a little more purpose in my presence.

Related posts:

1. Summer Activity #11: Hudson River Cafe – “View v. Food”
2. Summer Activity #7: Macondo, Food, Fun, Friend
3. Summer Activity #3 – NYC’s Intrepid Museum, Columbia Style

Fort Greene Park

There are a lot of parks in New York City, and many of them have their pluses and minuses. But in my “vast” knowledge of the study that is New York City parks, I have, to say, Fort Greene is probably the best in the city.

Why?

For starters, Fort Greene Park is in a beautiful, all-encompassing neighborhood. Unlike Central Park, Fort Greene Park is located in area where normal people can actually afford to live. Granted, there is a diverse collection of housing options around this park that includes projects to brownstones, but that makes for a diverse experience once you’re finally inside.

Secondly, you can cook in this park! That’s something you can’t do in Central Park, and barbequing is pretty hard to do in Prospect Park. Fort Greene makes it quite easy. With grilling-allowed areas and outdoor grills for you to use, it’s very easy to fire up the grill and get a burger or steak going.

Thirdly, the park is just the right size. We all are aware of the massive size of Prospect and Central Parks. And many of you know of much smaller parks, like Thompson Square Park or Battery City Park. Not unlike momma bear’s stuff, Fort Greene Park is just right when it comes to size. It’s not so big that you can’t enjoy it all in one day. But it’s not so mall that you can’t carve out a little space for yourself. From owning area for your family barbeque, to exploring the finer statues and building located right within the park, the space here is well designed and perfectly suited for your privacy and/or exploratory needs.

Lastly, Fort Greene Park is a lot of fun. I know other parks have plenty of stuff in them, too, so I won’t make this a defining characteristic, but I know that I in particular had more fun at Fort Greene than I’ve had at any other park in New York City. In fact, my afternoon at Fort Greene included climbing trees, taking in amazing views and watching planking!

That’s right—I said planking!

As you can see in the picture of me just outside of the park entrance, I came to find out that I was not planking properly, but it was still a lot of fun, and is something I am definitely going to try again the next time I’m at a park. And according to my list of things to in New York City this summer should be happening fairly soon…

Related posts:

1. Summer Activity #6 – Madison Square Park BBQ Block Party
2. Summer Activity #10: International African Arts Festival
3. Summer Activity #8: Habana Outpost, A July 4th Option