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How to retain a legal role
in your young adult’s life
It seems like just yesterday your son or daughter was a toddler and you were beaming with pride as they took their first wobbly steps.
You have been there for them as they had their first day of school. You were there when they skinned their knee sliding into first base in Little League. You helped them learn how to ride a bicycle and watched as they teetered down the driveway.
Soon they were driving, as evidenced by a few extra gray hairs on your head. Now, they are reaching adulthood, their 18th birthday.
Of course, your love for them does not end upon their 18th birthday. However, the legal landscape does change a bit. Now that they have achieved the age of majority and are legally adults, they can make their own decisions, even if you do not agree with them, and you do not have legal rights to make decisions for them. This can present difficulties, especially if they go away to college or travel abroad.
They may have a car or other assets that they will need sold or managed in their absence. They may have health care issues.
For example, Johnny is spending the summer traveling before starting school in the fall. He leaves his car parked in front of the house. A few days after Johnny leaves, his car gets towed because Johnny has several unpaid parking tickets he never took care of. You cannot get Johnny's car from the impound lot because you are not the owner.
However, these problems can be avoided. Johnny can do a set of documents that will make things more convenient for both of you. These documents would include a property power of attorney, an advance health care directive, and an authorization form to release medical records.
The property power of attorney would allow you to make decisions about his property as his "agent." This would allow you to retrieve the car. You also could sell the car if he needed extra cash for the trip.
The advance health care directive would allow you to make health-care decisions for Johnny in the event he is unable to make those decisions for himself. While a hospital may allow you to make decisions as his parent, they may be reluctant to do so, especially if his other parent is not present and in agreement.
Finally, the medical-records authorization form allows you to access medical information about your child. Beginning in 2003, strict new regulations were put in place regarding the release of medical information. Hospitals and other health care providers face huge penalties if they release patient information to any unauthorized individual. With the authorization form, you can find out medical information about your child. This could be as simple as getting a copy of his vaccination record for school, or it could be needed for a more serious medical concern.
You cannot keep your son or daughter from growing up, having adventures, or even making mistakes. However, you can continue to be there for them as they head off into the adventure that is their life.
Digital cameras are
getting better and cheaper
A month or so ago, I manned our company's tent at the Taste of Honolulu. It was fun, the food was delicious and it provided me space to mingle with customers.
What I enjoyed the most was taking digital photos of kids and printing out the shots on the spot. It still amazes me how easy it is snap a digital photo and print it almost instantly.
Sales of digital cameras have surpassed those of the old-fashioned variety, and prices are dropping almost daily. Printing technology also has gotten less expensive and more sophisticated.
At our booth, I got to test-drive a 5-megapixel Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart 707 camera, which came out earlier this year and retails for about $350. It was easy to operate, and with five megapixels you can easily blow up any shot to an 11 x 14-size print and get excellent resolution. It had a nifty zoom lens, in-camera red-eye removal and built-in 32 MB of memory. This compact, point and shoot camera is as easy to use as the convenient pocket film cameras.
Most likely, 32 megs doesn't provide enough room for photos of your next vacation, so you need to pick up a 256-meg SD memory card (about $50). This will allow you to store up to 1,000 low-resolution photos or hundreds of higher-quality shots.
What never fails to amaze me is how quickly technology improves and prices drop.
The sweet spot now that combines great price with excellent performance is the 4- to 5-megapixel camera that costs in the neighborhood of $300 to $400. Just a couple of years ago, I bought a top-of-the-line, 4-megapixel Canon G-2 for about $1,000.
Starting at four megapixels, you can now get models such as the Canon Powershot S410 or the Casio Exilim in the low-$300 range. Both of these got excellent reviews from CNET. Jumping into the 5-megapixel category, check out Fujifilm's F700 and Konica's Dimage G500 or KD 500z series. Online prices for these models start in the mid- to low-$300 range. Naturally, there are dozens of other good cameras out there.
Although the aforementioned models will work for family photos, it's important to research the cameras before you purchase.
Because the competition is so keen, it's hard to buy a really lousy camera, but all come with a slightly different feature mix. Before you lay out your credit card, you'll want to make sure you have a camera that will satisfy your needs.
In addition to CNET.com, which covers a range of technology in addition to digital cameras, I suggest that you look at several other sites devoted to digital photography.
These include www.dpreview.com, www.Steves-digicams.com and www.photo.net. If you're interested in reading a good article on how to purchase a digital camera, go to www.photo.net/equipment/digital/choosing.
Printing
If you've made the decision to purchase a camera, what about printing? Is it worth buying a printer, or should you order your photos online? It really depends on quantity and how important instant gratification is to you. If you're slightly geeky, like sending prints to friends and relatives, and don't mind spending a few hundred dollars or less, you'll want to buy a printer. End of story.If you're just an occasional user, purchasing digital photos online is probably more cost-effective and less of a hassle.
I'm more of a geek, and I really enjoyed being able to print photos down at Taste of Honolulu. I had a chance to use the HP PhotoSmart 245 printer, and it worked very well.
The quality of photos was excellent -- plenty good for the average user. Prices for this model start at around $150.
Of course, there are a ton of other decent printers out there. A quick search on CNET showed models ranging from $75 to $750. Some of the better-rated, inexpensive models for home users include the Canon i560 ($75), HP PhotoSmart 7960 ($200), Cannon i860 ($100) or the Epson Stylus Photo C84 ($50). Again, do your homework before you buy. In addition to searching online, go down to a computer store and check them out.
Storing photos online
The Web is chock full of amateur photography sites that will let you store, organize and print photos. This allows you to share photos with friends or relatives around the world and keep those precious shots for posterity. I take a lot of photos both for home and office consumption. My favorite online site is Sony's Imagestation.com. You can store an unlimited amount of photos free of charge. During the last three years, I've uploaded more than 4,000 photos -- that's more than a gigabyte of shots that are stashed away online. Sony allows you to quickly sort through and view thumbnails of the shots that can be clicked on to their full size. Other sites do not have this feature or have time limitations on storage. Sony (so far) will let you keep you photos online forever.In a future column we'll look at other sites that allow you to print and store photos. In the meantime, happy shooting!
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