baseball, Barcelona and the boogeyman

It's snowed twice this past week, enough snow one day to delay school openings and just a light, powdery blanket last night. Saturday was going to be nice and it was sunny enough for the boys' baseball tryouts at the baseball fields. The best part may have been spending the day outside, away from electronic games and computers. After breakfast (waffles for Ry; hashbrowns for Jack), we got outside early to check the gear and the cleats (see if everything was working and fit and make sure we found everything and included water bottles and snacks in the boys' bags) and the boys played some catch in the front yard. We drove over in time for the MMPII evaluations and then the Minor tryouts. Jackson wasn't sure whether to do minors or majors, but it looks like one more year in minors would be okay. Jackson wants to try some pitching this year, and the majors are stacked with club ball players. Rylee really wants to do minors. The adult rep for that league has cautioned us that Rylee is very young for minors. He was the only 7 year old out there. The rep is pushing Ry to do one more year of MMPII. Jack's coaches for several years, Eric and Bill, said Ry did  better than many of the older boys but purely because of his age probably wouldn't get much playing time in minors. Ry needs work on batting and the machine pitch would be better for that than the errant pitching. Lots of walks in minor league. Ry is a little disappointed and we have to talk about it more. We went to Flying Star for a celebratory lunch, welcoming Spring in a way, even though I suspect there's still some cold weather ahead and maybe some waves of snow, which we really need in the mountains to replenish our aquifers. Next weekend is field cleaning day.

Cyndi says she talked with Ariel, who was on her way to Barcelona for a week for another story. Cyndi also reported that Rylee scored very high on the final round of tests for gifted programs at school, and we just completed the financial aid application for Jackson to attend the academy. Still a long shot, I think, but worth doing. Bright kids.

I've been meaning to mention, mostly for jogging some memory in the future, a couple of the boys' superstitions that I've observed. One is Ry's careful closing of the bathroom door at night before going to bed. That door leads into the bedroom and the bathroom includes a closet. He likes that shut off. The other is how Jackson always asks for company, especially at night, to go downstairs. Ry seems to understand and always goes with him. He will ask even to retrieve a page of homework and even though Cyndi makes sure that several lights are always on. I think it's more an exercise of caution than fear. Jack also got quite concerned about reports that Java is being exploited to hack into computers. We did some research together, and it's actually very real. He wondered if the problem had been successfully patched, came up with lots of explanations, and then a resolution, we think. He needs Java for his Minecraft but thinks he can still use it as an application for that while disengaging it as a plug in for his browser. The downside, from what he told me, is that YouTube also depends on Java running. I'll have to get a followup report from him, because that's the best I can explain.