Best men and names

I first met Jake in 1999 when I moved back to Canada to start in the BlackBerry team.

A group of us used to go for lunch together almost every day and discuss work, bicycling, cars, politics, love and life -- all the usual guy stuff. Jake was an amazingly thoughtful, considerate and wonderful part of that group -- so much so that when I got married in Toronto many years ago, I asked him to be one of my "best men" and to stand up with me.

We worked very closely together for 3 years before I decided to wander yet again. Since then we had remained in contact and visited on both sides of the pond when possible.

My world is smaller now.

Jake had made such a great impression on me that recently, in very different circumstances for me, a few miles, years, and relationships further on, I had proposed to my wife who is 6 months pregnant that Jake would be a great name for our son and I told Jake this:

-----Original Message-----
From: Jacob Sauer
Sent: March 31, 2007 4:23 PM
To: Michael Maguire
Subject: Re: hey!
Mike, no worries i understand how busy things can get!
[...]
And good names :)

all the best to Babettli and the rest of the gang...
cheers,
Jake

On 31-Mar-07, at 04:30, Michael Maguire wrote:

> Jake,
>
> [...]
>
> P.S.: I'm sure you're aware of the difficulty of choosing a name for a kid.
> We've gone through a few iterations already. Usually names never make it
> through "phase I" (the outright rejection phase by Babettli or me) based on
> whether we know annoying people with those names. Then comes "phase II"
> (casually passing it by our parents for approval). Although I'm sure it
> will be liable to change again, the current working titles (which definitely
> made it through "phase I" and "phase II" are "Giacomo" (In english he will
> be "Jack") or "Giacobo" ("Jacob" or "Jake").


There are still a few months to go and life is never certain, but my wife and I have decided that "Giacobbe" (Italian for "Jacob") is a great name.