Wagering With The Good Reverend

One of the (many) quirks of my family is that nobody can seem to drive anywhere or sit in traffic without talking on the cellphone to somebody. Anybody. This is especially true of my younger sister Amy and even Reverend Dave. So a couple of times a week, in mid-afternoon, my phone rings, and I always know that one of my siblings back east is doing their evening commute.

The Good Reverend has a fairly lengthy commute, 35+ miles each way every day across the wilds of northern Alabama, so I hear from him quite a bit. Yesterday afternoon was one of those times. I don't know how the subject came up, but we realized that it was 16 years ago this week that I snagged our first dumpy apartment down in Phoenix and he joined me about a month later.

We had a lot of laughs reminiscing about just how poor and broke we were back then--both living on part-time jobs and student loans, going to school at ASU, buying food stamps for ten cents on the dollar from the local winos, and dating chicks that had no problem whatsoever with hopping the fence and sneaking into the neighboring complex with us to use the jacuzzi in the middle of the night. Those were the days...

Funny how things change. Now when we complain about being 'poor' it's because it costs us $70+ to gas up our brand-new trucks, there's only a couple hundred left in the checking account after the bills are paid, or that we don't feel like we have enough money to go on a ten-day cruise vacation and have to settle for just a week instead.

So we're both a bit better off now, and can afford more expensive hobbies like poker, sailing, shooting, golf, and motorcycle racing. And when Dave and I start talking, the conversation gravitates towards poker and motorcycle racing--the two things we spend most of our free time on, respectively.

Both of us enjoy our diversions immensely, but both of us are relative novices. I've played poker for years, but just started trying to be serious about it in the past year or so. Dave has ridden for years, but just started racing in the past year, too. So naturally this leads to a little sibling rivalry. Somehow in the course of our conversation yesterday we decided to make a wager as to who could emerge triumphant the soonest.

Dave hasn't finished higher than second in any of the races he's entered this year, and I haven't finished higher than second in any live no-limit poker tournaments I've entered this past year, either. We've both finished 'in the money' several times, but neither of us has gotten over the hump and been crowned champion.

So here is the bet -- If he wins a WERA Middleweight Vintage-7 race (with at least eight entrants) before I win a no-limit poker tournament against a field of thirty or more players, he wins the bet. If I notch my first tournament win against a 'real' field before he gets a checkered flag, I win. (I've won a few single-table sit-n-goes, and a couple of small two-table tourneys, but against a bigger field, I'm still on the schneid, so that's how we figured to make the bet the most evenly-matched).

Wanna know the stakes? If Reverend Dave wins, I have to send him a bottle of this:



And if I win, he has to send me a bottle of this:


Let the games begin!

Oh, and in case anyone is interested, here is a pic of Reverend Dave in his element: (clicky for full-size)



When I saw it for the first time, I was like, WTF is up with the orange shirt, dude? but then I remembered that he's from Alabama. If they ain't racin', they're huntin'. The outfit is just a time saver.

Mikey