the end of the SS Blog

Yep, that's right, I'm retiring the SS Blog. But no worries, I'm not pulling a SickBoy. I decided to set up a new blog for two main reasons - (1) since I won't be a Bella for the 2007 cycling season, I wanted to give my blog a new, less Bella-ish look; and (2) there are too many references to my real name (including the URL)...and quite frankly, that just creeps me out.

I'm still fine-tuning the new blog, but it's up and running, so check it out: got the bonk

I really appreciate that my fellow bloggers link to my blog - so if you decide that my new blog is worthy of linkage, please feel free to do so...but please don't use my real name. My nickname (Strats) or my blog name are preferred. Thank you.

The new blog comes just in time for my vacation where I likely won't have Internet access for almost two weeks. Starting up a new blog, then not posting anything for two weeks seems like bad blogger etiquette. And Smithers set quite the precedent this past summer when he hired (dis)pencer as a guest blogger while he was vacationing (and now Skibby appears to have hired (dis)pencer for a full-time gig...let's hope (dis)pencer does NOT know how to use Photoshop). So while you may think guest bloggers have already become cliche, I still think it's a cool idea. Therefore, I've already got my guest blogger lined up.

Strats out

Disbeliefs

1. The Croc Hunter was killed by a stingray.
2. Dr. Cox just called Dr. Dorian by his real name instead of referring to him as Betty, Barbie, or Martha.
3. My racing season ended prematurely due to re-injuring my hip (playing golf??) last weekend.
4. My cycling vacation is less than 2 weeks away...which means I have less than two weeks to get my hip ready to climb Mt. Ventoux.
5. Kasey won last weekend, has the most wins in 2007, yet still hasn't made The Chase.
6. Summer is almost over.

queen of the double bogey

I am a terrible golfer. I usually golf about twice a year and it's never pretty. The last time I golfed was about a year ago for the Stratton family golf challenge. We split into two even teams of four and made a bet that involved the losers buying dinner and drinks at the supper club on the lake my parent's live on. There was a lot of trash talking, drinking, and whiffs on the golf course that day...but in the end, we ended up tying, so my parents bought dinner and drinks for all of us. After dinner, my parents and my sisters were smart enough to go home before things got out of control. My boyfriend, my brother-in-law, my future brother-in-law (my younger sister's fiance), and myself moved to the cheesy outdoor "tikki hut" bar and began drinking both beer and Vodka Red Bulls while watching NASCAR (on mute) and playing our own game of 1980's heavy metal rock-n-roll trivia (since that was apparently the bartender's music of choice). By the time the sober-cab (disguised as my sister) showed up to give us a ride home, the guys were already well on their way to the proverbial doghouse. One Texas Holdem' game later, my sisters and I were so annoyed with the guys that we were actually relieved when they said they were going to walk down to the local bar. Needless to say, the next morning they all had to deal with the "Wrath of the Stratton Sisters", a topic that they had been discussing oh-so-freely in front of said sisters the night before. But I digress. In general, it was a fun family golf outing and we had hoped to make it an annual event.

But the second annual golf outing was not meant to be. For starters, my younger sister and her fiance moved to New York last winter. In addition, Pete and I are heading out of the country for two weeks on vacation later this month, and my mom is recovering from a broken wrist. So a family golf outing is not in the cards this year.

In lieu of the family golf outing, my dad (aka Chuck) and I decided to go play 9 holes of golf at a little Par 3 course today (keep in mind that I am not a golfer, but I will attempt to talk like one throughout this post).

So like I said, I suck at golf. But my short game is definitely better than my long game, relatively speaking. I have golf clubs that I bought from Fleet Farm when I was in high school. Sure, they're cheap and outdated, but they do the trick once or twice a year. However, driver technology has come a long way since I was in high school. So when it came time to tee off today, I borrowed my dad's knock-off Big Bertha (pictured). Big Bertha is the mother of all drivers. If you can't hit a tiny little golf ball with Bertha, it's time to head to the clubhouse and belly up to the bar. Bertha served me well a few times today, but as is always the case, I'm only good for about 4 - 6 nice swings an outing...and most of those are putts. But while I'm normally the queen of the triple and quadruple bogey...today I graduated to the queen of the double bogey. The stats for the day: only two or three whiffs, a couple of good putts, a couple of good tee shots, one pretty chip shot, and one sweet-ass swing with my 4-iron. So while par for this course is 29, I shot a 48. And believe it or not, that was a good golf game for me. For the record, Chuck didn't do much better...but I won't embarrass him here...except for the photo of him squatting in an attempt see under the branches in front of him as he watches his ball after hitting out of the trees.

I should point out that we both did much better at fishing later in the day (along with my mom) - we caught a mess of crappies that Chuck grilled up for dinner along with some excellent grilled veggies and some Wrongo Dongo. (I've now moved on to Franzia in the box...I kid you not).

While I did okay golfing today, I somehow managed to "tweak" the hip I had surgery on last fall. I'm hoping that between the wine and a good night's sleep, I'll wake up without my current limp. I should really stick to cycling.

some bloggers racing at the track on thursday

Karla! (state pts race champion!) and Skibby













Donimator's Stoker and Donimator
(the Chequamegon tandem team is looking strong!)













(Dis)pencer (Smithers guest blogger) and Super Rookie

bad day at the races

Saturday was the last road race of 2006 for me and I ended it with a big 'ol DNF. I'm not even going to bother boring you with the details this time. I'll just say that it's no secret that I need to do some hill training before road racing in 2007.

But I had Bristol to look forward to that night! Or so I thought. I guess I saw enough of the race to know that none of my guys won...or even got a top 10. I don't think I got Karla hooked on NASCAR, but at least she has a guy now.

All in all, a bad day at the races.

The highlight of the day was definitely watching everyone else race in Marty Minnesota.

So now it's the road off-season...and I must admit I'm glad. At the same time, I really look forward to road racing in 2007 and I'm bummed that it's so far away.

"Floods, Tornadoes, Hurricanes..."

As you may have noticed, I'm not one to blog much about politics and/or national and world issues...I leave that to Smithers (because he's way better at it than I could ever be).

Those of you who know me well know that my job revolves around water - mostly lake water quality, river and stream systems, storm sewer systems, and water quantity (i.e. flooding). One of my areas of specialty is Flood Insurance Studies - to simplify, I create computer models that predict flood levels for rivers, streams, and lakes. I deal with FEMA on a weekly basis since these studies are submitted to them.

Two of my co-workers are retired U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employees. After Katrina, the Corps asked if they could go to New Orleans to help manage the levee reconstruction projects. They both obliged and just recently returned to the Twin Cities. Last month they gave a fascinating presentation about the levee reconstruction project. The presentation included photos of the destruction and the reconstruction, maps of the of depth of flooding throughout the city, maps of the locations where the levees failed, and all sorts of other interesting data (interesting to us scientists and engineers anyway).

After the presentation, a co-worker in the audience asked what I think is the obvious question: why? The response was that the people of New Orleans don't even question reconstruction...it's a non-issue to them.

Anyway, the point of this post is that a friend forwarded me this interesting article from Time Magazine that I'd really like to share: Floods, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Wildfires, Earthquakes...Why Don't We Prepare.

what's more tiring than track racing?...

...trying to shop for shoes to match a bridesmaid dress at the Mall of the Universe with a 3.5-yr old and a 2-yr old.

First, let me point out that I do not like to shop. Actually, let me re-phrase that - I do not like to shop in a mall. The only kind of shopping I like to do is online shopping...no digging through clothes to find the right size, no salespeople to bother me with "are you finding everything you're looking for?", no parking problems, no waiting in line, no high-schoolers that make me worry about having children that will turn out like them, no one asking you to try their product or take a survey, no dressing rooms with a million mirrors (one of which always shows a "bad angle" that I've never seen myself from before)...just me and the computer. And needless to say, Pete's not a shopper either.

So Pete and I normally avoid the MOA like the plague, but it couldn't be helped this time. My sister and I needed to find these shoes ASAP, so when track racing got cancelled due to rain, we agreed to meet my sister and nephews at the most overwhelming place in the Twin Cities/US?/World?. Pete was put on J-Dawg duty - not an easy assignment considering this is a 2-yr old who must touch and climb on anything and everything (and attempted to take a swim in the "wishing well" fountain).

The kids were actually pretty good considering we were dragging them through shoe store after shoe store. Although we did have to make a few pit-stops: one stop at the restroom where the Porkchop insisted that Aunt Sarah help him use the bathroom ("take my shoe off Sawah! Now put me on the toilet!!"); one stop at Lego-Land so the kids could pick up a few germs from the Legos that a million other kids had touched that day; one stop at the wishing well where the kids helped me finally get rid of all of my useless pennies; and two stops at the Rainforest Cafe (one to see the fake crocodile and creepy talking tree, and one to get a "special toy" for being good all night).

In the end, the shopping trip was a success (I thank the shopping goddesses that I don't have to go back!), and Pete and I got home in time to have a drink...or five.

ah, cute...

....they're even next to each other in this week's Power Rankings: