Ah, Serendipity!

I say "Be astonished -- and joyful!" and "Choose always to be surprised!"

This was a good moment.

Serendipity has always been a big guiding force in my life...

For awhile I thought it would be a good name for a daughter, with the nickname Sara. Other people have told me that it's not a good idea because the poor girl would probably get stuck with the nickname "Dippy" instead.

It's a bad idea because she would be under the impression that she was a fortunate surprise, but an accident nonetheless.

Dippy shmippy.

It's like naming your kid "Ooops!"

Oh, and rock on by the way. Michigan is awesome. As are London based companies.

Crossword entry warrants a Dan comment. (How come in all the years I've walked around with entire books of crosswords, nobody's interviewed me?)

I haven't done the Globe xword many times, but my impression is that in terms of quality it's at least three times as good as the Metro. Metro crosswords bite. But they serve their purpose. For a while I was trying to work on doing the Metro between Harvard and Kendall (which is frankly more a test of speed-writing than solving.) Then I decided there are probably more productive uses of my time. :)

Admittedly, I don't do the Globe crossword that often so I probably don't have a good gauge on the difficulty level. However, for awhile when I was working EC Desk I used to note that the crossword in the Tech was usually the same as the one in the Globe. And I usually zipped through the ones in the Tech, so that was my basis of comparison.

But really, I prefer the New York Times puzzles - they tend to be much more clever in both individual clues and themes. Not that I time myself on them or plan on posting the times here. :) I was just proud of myself for finishing Sunday's puzzle during the course of two episodes of Cosby without out once asking anyone for help.

Why Serendipity AKA Sara is not a goo idea:

serendipity is the intervention of an uplifting power that gives the soul flight, while Sara means sorrow - the unnecessary but nonetheless too often actual emotion that comes most often as the result of feeling "knocked down."

Serendiipty (like some other first names I have known;-) may or may not be appreciated by a recipient child but would likely, at least well before the end, be understood by that maturing child to have been meant as both "well" and as a gift of imagination and spirit: both for her's and from "their's."

BTW...have you paused to wonder whether your Serendipitous Stranger and The Foon's Foolish Crossword Fiend might have been one in the same?

On naming a child, I say go for it. Despite the "Amelia Bedelia" taunts of my younger days, I love having a somewhat unique name. I need to find myself a hippie man who's okay naming a child "Marygold" -- Mary for short.

As for the random "interview" -- God works in mysterious ways. I'd say pursue it to the end. While education does have a value in and of itself, the main goal is to get you a career and a life that you love. If this company is legit, and the job is what you want, you've achieved the goal -- at least for now. If nothing else, it's experience and a few more dollars in your pocket before more college. (Oh, btw, this post came back as "questionable content" because I said c-a-s-h. Evil, I know.)

Sara means Princess, even Lady but not sorrow!