Driven: An anecdote (part 2)

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
May 15, 2015

Earlier, I wrote about starting to drive home from a restaurant in northwestern Raleigh. Having set the stage in that post, I now return to my mildly amusing anecdote!

There’s a relatively desolate stretch on U.S. 70 on the northeastern edge of  Raleigh-Durham International Airport where an array of two-lane overpasses hang over the road. I had a heavy foot on the accelerator as I topped the rise that leads to this section.

And then I lifted my foot from the gas.

There appeared to be a police car parked in the median. I was pretty sure that the speed limit on that part of the road is 55 miles per hour. When I topped the rise, I was going too fast.

Driven: An anecdote (part 1)

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
May 15, 2015

Something funny happened Wednesday night on my way home from the poker game.

This is the 13th of 26 weeks in the current World Tavern Poker season. (Quick reminder: World Tavern Poker is free poker, with absolutely no buy-in or monetary outlay required to play; the business model depends on players voluntarily buying food and drink at the bars and restaurants that host games.) The midway point is when the circuit holds All-Star Tournaments. The winner of each venue’s All-Star Tournament, which is actually a pair of tournaments, gets entry into a national World Tavern Poker event along with a commemorative victory medallion.

I didn’t do particularly well in Wednesday night’s first tournament, finishing 18th out of 44 participants. After some early struggles in the second tournament, my hands started hitting, and my stack grew. At the end, I was heads-up against a young woman whom I’ll call M. (Heads-up refers to when two and only players remain; it can refer to a single hand or to the conclusion to a tournament, as in this case.) Lately, I’ve had a lot of difficulty winning heads-up matches, and that was the case this time: M. won the game, leaving me in second place with a respectable haul of more than 10,000 points.