Saturday, March 29, 2008

multi-way replication is surely as trustworthy as God

Yesterday, Tom and I were talking about advanced medical directives. In my living trust, Tom holds power of attorney in case I cannot make my own medical decisions.

Me: "Do you still have the email I sent you?" (When I set up the living trust, the lawyer explained that Tom would likely experience guilt if the situation transpired. He said it would ease my brother's burden if I explicitly state my wishes beforehand, which I did so in email.)

Tom: "Oh, I've definitely kept that email."

Me: [nodding]

Tom: "Do you also have it printed out and stored somewhere?"

Me: "No. It only exists in email."

Tom: "That's the only copy?"

Me: "Yes. In Gmail I trust."

6 comments:

Unknown said...

"Yes. In Gmail I trust."

Very clever. But what if Tom accidentally deletes the email?

For those who don't want go through the expense and effort of creating a living trust with an Advance Health Care Directive, and just an Advanced Health Care Directive:

http://www.cmanet.org/publicdoc.cfm/7
http://www.cmanet.org/upload/AdvDir2006watermarked.pdf

Anonymous said...

do you make these conversations up? because they are just too funny.

Anonymous said...

It's a good thing the south Bay doesn't ever experience power outages or ISP outages!


(well, wouldn't that be nice if it was true?)

Anonymous said...

What was the subject line of the email?

"What to do when the plug is in your hands."

Anonymous said...

Your brother, not your parents, has the power of attorney?

Anonymous said...

"Your brother, not your parents, has the power of attorney?"

If I had to put the power of attorney in either my parents or my brothers hands, I'd put it in my brothers hands. He understands America better and I expect him to live longer.

Not saying I dont love and trust my parents but sometimes your parents dont necessarily understand the times as well.

Besides that if I told my parents to pull the plug on me I'd never hear the end of it. If I told my brother I'm sure he'd do it, even if he hated to.