I celebrated Labor Day this year, by taking toddlers to the zoo. Sounds like fun, right?

They have a children’s train which my oldest was intent to ride, and nothing was going to stand in the way. My wife boarded the train with the toddlers, and I tried my hardest to get a good picture with my Droid. The camera is decent enough for this sort of thing, but herding toddlers in a miniature caboose, and trying to get them to look at a camera and smile long enough to take a shot is painful. Very painful.

As I tried shouting instructions, and even began to reason with them (last resort plan), I began to have a flashback, and realized I might have become my father…

Picture if you can, Christmas in 1990. Not very long ago at all, it seems.

Dad is trying out the new 35mm Nikon which Santa delivered, and has already loaded one of the 3 rolls of 400 speed, 36 exposure film that was tucked neatly into one of the stockings, along with several AA batteries.

Leave it to Santa Claus to remember the necessities to get the camera ready for Christmas morning, and let us rejoice the happy coincidence that the camera was the first gift unwrapped, allowing it to be used to capture all of the other precious memories which would follow on Christmas morning.

Fast forward to early afternoon—Dad is trying to gather all the kids together for a picture in their brand new clothes on the stairs.  The objective is to capture a nice picture of the children, and also prove to relatives that the outfits they sent through the mail have been worn at least once.

Dad starts cursing. The kids won’t sit still, and won’t make proper smiles at the correct time. 30+ shots later, he loads another roll of film, muttering something about the cost of film, and not wanting to pay to develop thirty-something photos of crap for 1 or 2 good shots. This endeavor is going to cost at least $20 when all is said and done. The memory becomes too vivid, and my flashback ends.

Back to Labor Day—suddenly my mind was at ease, because I wasn’t my father. This wasn’t going to cost me a penny, and the worst case scenario is that the train would depart, and we would miss the perfect shot. Family and friends on Facebook would just have to live with this.  I must have taken at least 25 pictures of children in a caboose, and frankly I’m not sure if any of them came out. I haven’t been able to bring myself to look through them yet.

The moral of the story is this: even though human behavior hasn’t changed in the last twenty years, and children aren’t likely to evolve drastically anytime soon, technology has enhanced our lives. I won’t have to pay to develop 20 pictures, and hope that one turned out. I can sift through the pictures on my computer, to find the perfect shot, and discard all the rest. Or keep them, for that matter—since storage is virtually free on my hard-drive. We no longer have to be stingy when it comes to capturing moments.

Having endured a stint in financial services, I can tell you that it is messy business when a loved one dies.  Amidst all of the grief, anxiety and pain of losing a loved one, inevitably, someone has to gather and decide what to do with all of your stuff. 

Usually it is a spouse or an eldest child, who is tasked with having to locate all of your worldly possessions, and then procure them. 

Banks and financial services firms have procedures in place where an executor can provide specific documents (unique by financial institution and the state where you died).  Family members often travel the 4 corners of the globe trying to get all of the necessary paperwork to claim your assets, to be doled out to your rightful heirs.  Usually it involves multiple trips to courthouses, county clerk’s offices, notary public offices, lawyer’s offices, and perhaps the financial institutions themselves to get everything straight.  In summary, it is often a pain in the rear, and rarely will your survivors even know if an account contains more than the amount they spent to procure access to it ahead of time, since there are tight restrictions on disclosure and privacy.

As if it weren’t complicated enough, now whoever is taking care of your estate has to contemplate what to do with your web-presence.  Facebook offers a couple of options:  They can either close an account, or turn it into a virtual memorial, where people can celebrate your life.  Twitter followed suit today, announcing a process for your friends or family to close your account when you pass away.  I’m unaware whether MySpace has a similar policy, but odds are you will outlive MySpace , and even if you don’t—no one will see anything there anyway.

I suppose it won’t be long before people start declaring their wishes for their online legacy in their wills.

So can you do me a favor before you die?  If you have any assets, or a social media profile that you have any special interests in maintaining or deleting, can you make sure you write it all down, and put it someplace safe (preferably with a lawyer) and make sure I know where it is?