If you don't have Gmail, you really don't get it

I say this because I constantly have friends telling me "my email is down" and I get emails from crazy addresses that tell me that attorney clients of mine are having problems with their Outlook so "I'm using this email address to send the depositions" or my local Mac user group suddenly goes into a scrum about how MacMail's not working yadda yadda yadda.

People: If you can get online anywhere any way from any device, you can use your Gmail account.

You don't have to rely on specific programs, machines, or third parties to deliver the goods.

What is wrong with you?

I'm not saying use Gmail for your daily life if you find it a pain in the butt.

But please: have a Gmail address ready and waiting for the inevitable day when your regular email doesn't work.

Because you know and I know that that day has come in the past and will mos def come again in the future.

Who knows?

Maybe it's happening right now.

Statistically speaking, that's almost a certainty.

But I digress.

In the O.R., I don't assume just because the hospital's main oxygen supply is always working that it will always be working: that's why I have two green cylinders of liquid oxygen bolted to the side of my anesthesia machine.

In that same vein — as it were — I don't assume my anesthesia machine's breathing circuit is always gonna work the way it's supposed to, even though it always does: I keep an Ambu breathing bag — and bag-to-mask connector — in the bottom drawer of my anesthesia cart during every case.

It's not rocket surgery.

Think like an anesthesiologist.*

*Coming along nicely even as I make the transition from bookofjoe on TypePad to bookofjoeTV everywhere you don't want to be. Still on track for 2013 publication. You'll read it here first.