Category: life cereal

ants at the beach….genius video!

Beached from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Some really sad news today…Katie Reich has passed away. As Wade and I said over and over…it always seems to happen to the best people. You can see her story at CaringBridge.

Oye. It is the last weekend of Oktoberfest and all I have to show for it is this ridiculous photo that I made for work but never got to use.

Don’t you just love the juxtaposition of my dad in his lederhosen and Cooper (whose head was photoshopped on some accordion dude’s body) in a semi-modern/frilly/girlie room? I think it is Cooper’s noggin that really makes the image great.

Hmmm…perhaps a trip to a good German beergarden is in order (one with beers in boots, preferably).

Actually a couple of beers would be good. This past month has been a weird one for the Beckords…my dad is dealing with a cancer scare; my older bro is gearing up for a 6 month sail with his wife; my sister and her family are in a state of flux with kids who don’t sleep, a potential move and just general major life/job transitions; my little bro started his first ever 8-5 which is never easy to adjust to; and Cooper and I are moving. All the while my mom gets to worry about the each and every one of us.

I say, “Beers for everybody!”

Woops. We are ridiculous. First we cause ourselves some ulcers then we go back to the apartment we debated about for far too long and now we are moving in October. No, we don’t have time to move, and no we are not made of money, and no I am not as excited about the neighborhood, but I LOVE THE SPACE!! This photo doesn’t do the place justice…I’ll just have to take more. So, yes we are moving, and yes I am terrible at getting organized to move, and yes this is going to cause a larger ulcer, and yes it maybe doesn’t make a ton of sense, and yes we will get to take care of my bro’s dog for 6 months, but yes…I AM EXCITED! People come visit! I promise the bathroom is not right next to the living room anymore…but now you might want to bring ear plugs if the sound of a train passing by bothers you.

The view from the perspective of a 2.5 year old….

This past weekend the “girls” (mom, sister and my two nieces) were visiting while Cooper went for a man fest with some guy friends in Mississippi. Boy it is great to be with girls. Not that boys are bad but having some time with the girls you love most is such an amazing thing. We did all the best things you can do when the weather was as perfect as it was…we… visited my new apartment (!!!), went out for lunch in North Berkeley, walked to parks and spent HOURS playing, went out for Naan ‘n Curry, ate chocolate ice cream, took my sister to a spa, went to Cheeseboard, walked to a pizza joint for pie and pitchers of beer, went out to breakfast with one boy (brother) then to the street festival right outside my apartment. It was all so much fun and so tiring that we accidentally got to the airport early so we all took naps in the car. The hard part: when we have to leave each other. We tend to get “ferclempt” and shed some tears. Some may call it girl power, others may just see it as a super close bond. All I know is that I love the girls in my family.

Guess Who from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo

Ummmm, this is great. Couldn’t have been a better song choice. I used to rig Guess Who? by putting the faces in exactly the same order on both boards then telling my component “we are supposed to put down who we have before we start”…that way I knew right away who their person was and I always won. Yup, I was that kid.

A quick installment on things I love…

* Waking up in the morning and pressing snooze for an hour and a half then telling yourself, “Self, you don’t need to get up for anything. Turn that thing off and keep sleeping.” Then doing it!

* Drinking coffee or any warm and soothing liquid (or thick pudding-ish spicy hot chocolate) out of white mugs where the lip is so fat you can barely get your mouth around it (a bit of an exaggeration but you know what I mean).

* Walking from Rockridge to Berkeley and stopping in favorite shops for as long as I want.

* Going to the Half Priced Bookstore and loading up on their really good $1 clearance books.

* Drinking good beer.

* Quality lining in clothes. Especially little details that no one else will see but make you feel really happy. (i.e Cooper’s Ted Baker suit with pimpin’ lining or the inside of a pair of shoes that no one really gets to see but you love it).

* Thinking about making a key lime pie. Maybe actually making it will induce even more love.

* A student or artist setting up a free screenprint of Obama on Berkeley’s campus. Awesome screen print and color choice (a pumpkin orange). I loved seeing folks (young and old!) take off their shirts to get the print. I considered taking mine off but thought against it, then thought…”It is Berkeley! People will support me!”…then again thought against it.

* Seeing a potentially homeless man smoking a cigarette, wearing clown face paint and ACTUAL CLOWN SHOES! A kid and his mom walked by…the kid was excited but I would have been scared.

* Asking random strangers who are eating ice cream “How is it?” People are always pleasant while eating ice cream.

* Going to my favorite park in Berkeley to watch dogs and happy folk enjoy life.

* Boba Thai iced tea. I’ve mentioned this before, but I had to mention it again.

So, I’m trying to get into this video world a bit and figure out how to do it for my jobby job. Cooper and I were testing a mic the other night and this is what came out of it…(WARNING!! I look disgusting, I am dressed like a grandma, and I need botox to plump my lips up. Please overlook the visuals and just listen to the audio).

Cornish Game Hens from Ali Beckord on Vimeo.

A fifteen step program in “How to form an ulcer” (aka nearly lose your boyfriend and risk your own insanity)…

Step 1. Pick the busiest month of the year when your boyfriend has more to do than humanly possible.

Step 2. Fall in love with a new apartment. In our case it was a loft space that was sooooooo cool with 40 foot ceilings and 1200 sq feet and allowed for dogs! The down sides: right by the train tracks with hooting trains that go by all the live long day and night, it is not nearly in as cool a neighborhood (or as safe), it is further from BART, and it is more $$$.

Step 3. Spend two days waiting by the computer pressing refresh every 2 seconds in hopes for the rental application to come through.

Step 4. Get the application and fill it out.

Step 5. Get burritos and drive to the new apartment space and sit outside in the dark to see what it is like at night. Eat the burritos.

Step 6. Take the completed application and drive it at 10:00pm to the property manager’s office in San Rafael before anyone else can get their application in.

Step 7. Sit outside the property manager’s office for two hours until 12:00am and talk about whether this is the right decision or not.

Step 8. Get cold feet, don’t turn the application in and drive home. Boyfriend is relieved, girlfriend is having second thoughts.

Step 9. Wake up the next day to a girlfriend with regret pains (aka start of ulcer). Boyfriend drives back to San Rafael to turn the application in (aka start of ulcer).

Step 10. Wait for days and days for the credit dude to do his job.

Step 11. Convince your current property managers to allow you to give a temporary 30-days notice (when it is actually now 29 days) even though you don’t know if you have  a new apartment or not.

Step 12. Wait. Deliberate. Get nervous.

Step 13. Go back to the space and check it out once more. Girlfriend loves it boyfriend is not so sure.

Step 14. Think too much. Get way too many people involved in helping you make a decision. Try to sleep through the night. Don’t sleep. Girlfriend has dreams about boyfriend leaving her because the loft rental was too stressful.

Step 15. 1:30 pm…your application is accepted. 2:00pm you call the boyfriend for a final decision (all while you know you have to give your current property managers a final decision on whether to continue with your 30 days notice or not by 5:00pm that day). Boyfriend and girlfriend talk over and over and make up their minds 2983758275987 times but then change it 2.5 seconds later. 4:30pm the ulcer starts to take full effect. 4:45 you pass on the opportunity.

Ulcer.

The loft space at night…don’t tell me it is cool because it is gone. Moving on.

If you go to Montpellier, France…here is what you should do:

Go to the beach…..

Walk through a little town that I don’t know the name of, but it is protected by UNESCO so that should help you figure it out. I was not prepared for this, but if you do go take hiking shoes so you can go on a nice jaunt in the hills…

Find a great vineyard and do some wine tasting….

Then eat some food while sipping wine. Go to a place that has food you could never make for yourself and you know is probably some crazy part of an animal you never thought you would eat but you actually like the taste…

Then hold a massive bottle of wine while people run off into the sunset. Which is honestly what I am doing here…