Josh Warren, RIP

If you are one of our Rice friends, and remember Josh Warren (Weiss, '96, bio-chem), he passed away unexpectedly this weekend. Here is the obituary:

Joshua John Warren died unexpectedly on Sunday, Sept. 2, 2007.

He was born May 23, 1974, in Tuscaloosa. Josh graduated from Emma Sansom High School in 1992, where he was valedictorian of his class. He received a B.S. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology from Rice University in 1996 and his doctoral degree in Molecular Biochemistry and Biophysics from Yale University in 2001. Josh was employed at Duke University as a postdoctoral research associate at the time of his death. His research focused on X-ray crystallographic methods to explore protein structures, particularly as it related to cancer diagnosis. Josh was an exceptional man, with a sense of humor and quick wit balanced by a genuine sense of warmth and concern for his family and friends. Josh never met a stranger and had a wide circle of friends. He was an avid reader and had a variety of interests, including pottery, choral music, whitewater paddling, food and wine, and baseball.

Josh is survived by his wife, Lauren, and their 21Ú2-year-old son, Nathan, of Chapel Hill, N.C.; his parents, Howard and Kathleen Warren, of Gadsden; his sister and brother-in-law, Rebecca and Mario Salas; and a niece, Elena Sofia, of Hoover; his grandmother, June McGuire, of Rainbow City; and his father- and mother-in-law, Fred and Cherie Half, of Palo Alto, Calif.

Memorial services will be held on Wednesday at 10 a.m. at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter, with visitation to follow in the Parrish Hall and at Duke Gardens on Friday.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the charity of your choice.

Collier-Butler Funeral and Cremation Services is in charge of arrangements.

Ben and I didn't know Josh that well, but we had eaten with him (and occasionally Lauren) on our trips through Chapel Hill on the way to Virginia. He was a warm, smart, funny man. His son Nathan is the same age as Josie.

I recommend taking some time today to appreciate the ones you love -- you never know how much longer you -- or they -- have.

May you rest in peace, Josh.

Amazon takes on Paypal, enables micropayments

Fascinating, and incredibly powerful for software developers. All part of Jeff Bezos' "we want to monetize our entire infrastructure" view of the world.

Decluttering and Makeup

I've been on a decluttering tear lately -- something about the change of seasons puts me in the mood for clearing stuff out. (Plus, I've been reading It's all Too Much, the newest clutter management book to hit the shelves).

Tonight it was my bathroom cabinet. What I realized, clearing out my hair, makeup, and drugstore stuff, was that I was completely out of my favorite lipstick and makeup. (And probably had been for a year or longer.) It's not like I'm a teenager anymore, playing around with cosmetics. I know what I like. So what's going on? I think it has to do with not giving my self permission to spend money -- good makeup, at least in this case, is expensive. Definitely not an impulse buy, since neither of them are carried in stores any longer. So, in the back of my head, I think "too much trouble, too much money." And then I wonder why I can't be bothered to put on makeup in the morning. Why bother if the results aren't worth it? (And nothing lives up to how I feel in these 2...)

So I went tonight and found each online, and added in a perfume I've been wanting for a long time (I've been carting the sample vial around for more than 10 years).

Since I would kill someone for whining this long about makeup without telling me what it was in particular, here we go:


Stila Cream Lip Color in Billie -- I first bought this around 1998, out shopping with Kara and John. I went to the Stila counter, showed them my new eye glasses, and said "I want a lipstick that will match this." (really!) It's a great red brown color, and works great with both my skin and my wardrobe.


Alexandra de Markoff Moisturizing Matte Makeup. My mother found some of this (a major bargain I'm sure), years ago, and we both loved it. It's a formula from the 1940s -- I've read that Vivian Leigh wore it in Gone with the Wind -- of mineral oil and pigments. It creates a flawless matte face, very retro looking (which is why I like it!).



Society by Burberrys. All I remember about this perfume is spicy and sweet at the same time.

My Other Blog...

You may not know it, but I have another blog called The Steampunk Home.

It's slightly embarrassing -- Ben jokes I'm the world expert on Steampunk Home design -- to be blogging about decorating the house in an aesthetic that no one has heard about.

Steampunk is basically an alternative future where the information age starts during Victorian times. Think The Difference Engine, The Diamond Age, Firefly or Wild Wild West.

If you want to find out more about steampunk, I'd suggest these links:
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mods/multimedia/2007/06/gallery_steampunk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk
http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk/brassgoggles/

If you'd like to drop by and visit my (perhaps) more entertaining and more prolific blog, you'd be welcome.

Convio files S1

Via Forbes.

The press release.

I can't find the S1 online anywhere; I'll post that when it appears.

An S1 is the document a company files with it's intention of offering an intial public offering (an IPO).

Since Ben's been at Convio for 6+ years now, this is nice to see.

Alison Fader-Brock Photography

My friend Alison has her photography exhibit, "Lost in the Quotidian" up at Thunderbird Coffee in Austin, and has just debuted her website. Alison sees -- and captures -- images most of us just step over.

Lifehacking, feminist engineer style: meals & cooking

Perhaps the first in a series of posts where I examine the structures Ben and I have instituted in our lives to at least attempt gender parity in the home. As a pragmatist, I know we may never been entirely equal. As an idealist (as well as a lazy person), I believe it is worth striving for.

When it comes to planning meals and cooking for the family, you first have to identify the tasks:

• Meal Planning -- what recipe to make, what sides to put with it, when to cook it, when to eat it, and when to eat out.
  
• Grocery Shopping -- getting the resources you need to execute the plan
• Cooking -- What most people consider the actual work: the act of applying heat to the resources to turn them into something you can eat. In reality, if you do the first and second well enough this can be optimized to 15-20 minutes worth of work a day.
• Cleaning -- table cleaned off, dishes into the dishwasher, dishwasher run as needed, cooking dishes cleaned/soaked/dishwashed, counters and tabletop wiped.
  
• Dishwasher cleaned out (asynchronous task).
  
• Leftover management -- leftovers put into appropriate containers, ideally added to a list so they aren't forgotten about.

In our household, these tasks are split the following way:

Meal Planning/Grocery Shopping/Cooking -- Owned by Ben or Sara on alternating weeks. What this means is that you have ownership over everything food related for that week -- if you don't plan, or forget to buy something at the grocery store, or don't get home in time to cook it's your problem. (We do occasionally pitch in to help each other out -- but the ownership that means when it isn't your week, you don't worry about it.) It also means we eat a nice variety of foods -- Ben's food one week (hello cube steak), Sara's the other (mushroom soba noodles, anyone?). If you need something from the grocery store on your off week, you just make sure you add it to the list on the fridge.

Cleaning -- generally done by the person who isn't cooking. While this isn't entirely optimal (it doesn't give you a good incentive to clean as you go or use as few dishes as possible), our dinners are usually simple enough that it isn't a big deal. We're also slowly integrating Miss J. into this task -- with the hope that she'll handle the table portion, at least, by the time she's 5 or 6.

Dishwasher clean out -- not officially allocated. I think Ben does this more than I do, but I may do it more than he does. Often we combine it with fixing dinner or cleaning up from dinner.

Leftover management -- not our best task. I tend to put away leftovers more than Ben does, but it officially falls on the Cleaner for the week. Managing eating them, however, should be the responsibility of the Cooker for the week. In reality, leftover management often falls into the "refrigerator cleanout" task, which Ben often does (especially the gross parts).

I think the smartest thing about our system is the alternating weeks. We know whose job it is to cook on a given day -- no micromanagement or tiresome negotiation needed. And by trading off the thinking parts of the responsibility we each get a break -- this wouldn't be nearly as "fair" (or as fun) if one of us was always planning the meals and doing the grocery shopping, with the other pitching in to cook.