Matt LeBlanc and Rowan Atkinson on Top Gear

Top Gear is old hat, but here is Joey doing a lap in a reasonably priced car.

And here's Mr. Bean's lap.

Barbara Bush campaigning for Jeb

This is sad. Sad.

Car purchased!

Cargo plane and VW Bugs

Tim's Citroen

It's almost done!

Here it was in 2012.

My next car: Acura TSX wagon

The Saab story has become a sob story. Three of the best Saab specialists in town can't figure out what's wrong with it. Repair estimates range from $3,100 to $5,000+, with no guarantees. Worse, the parts needed for said repair are nowhere to be found.

So, a new chapter. Something reliable. I'm going to get a 2014 TSX wagon tomorrow or Friday. It's white.

Eazy E in 1989, Venice Beach

High resolution moon surface shot

From that Chinese moon rover.

Iowa: Day 4 + Election Results Postscript

I wanted to beat the snow storm so I left Iowa a day early. Unfortunately, I was going to miss the caucus process Monday night.

I drove two hours to Des Moines, mostly through icy fog. I highly recommend two of the podcasts I listened to during the boring drive. The first is an interview of a journalist who has covered every Middle East war since 1973. The second is an interview of New York Times food critic Pete Wells.

I grabbed a quick lunch at this "Chinese" joint next to the airport. I had overdosed on pork during this trip but I just had to try their bacon egg roll. It was surprisingly funky, in a good way. I had imagined an entire slice of bacon wrapped inside the egg roll, but it was actually little bits peppered in the edible delivery device.

At a table next to mine was a nice older lady. We got to talking and I learned that she was going to be a Hillary precinct captain on caucus night. Despite all the vitriol and bad blood, I quickly realized that in the grand scheme of things, we are on the same side. We really need to talk to and socialize with people with different points of view. Hanging out with partisans who agree with you 100% of the time is neither productive nor healthy.

On the flight to my Vegas layover, I read a sad but uplifting article in the airline magazine(!) about a Navajo woman who delivers fresh water to reservation residents.

I had a three hour layover in Vegas and my mother took me to this authentic Chinese restaurant right next to the airport. I highly recommend it if you have a few hours to burn between connections. Having had no real vegetables for three days, I ate every green-looking thing on the table.

A final note about the trip. Somehow, my boarding passes said I got assigned to TSA Pre-Check. It was incredibly convenient. There were no lines, and I didn't have to take off my shoes or stand in that see-me-nude machine. I'm going to sign up for it. It made the airport experience infinitely better.

A final final note. I was and am conflicted. I realize that I was essentially a caucus tourist. Though my motives were sincere-- I wanted substantive change in the political process and wanted to make this country a better place for the poor and middle class-- this was essentially a vacation. I treated Iowa like an exotic destination and marveled at the foreign ways the people there lived and ate. I do not feel good about it.

Postscript:
Did Bernie win, lose, or draw? Officially, Hillary won 699.57 county delegates to Sanders's 697.77. The county where I worked, Black Hawk County, went for Sanders 53%-47%. The arcane rules and imperfect hand counting led to a less-than-ideal result. Six delegates-- SIX-- were determined by coin tosses. Hillary won all six.

This is how the #IowaCaucus works. A tie is solved tossing a coin @HillaryClinton wins pic.twitter.com/yZDTUKFJXQ

— Fernando Peinado (@FernandoPeinado) February 2, 2016

American democracy at work, ladies and gentlemen!

Post postscript:

Among Democratic voters ages 17 to 29, Bernie won 84% to 14%.

So was it a win, lose, or draw for Bernie?

Iowa: Day 3

Day 3 was interesting.

I learned that after the Bosnian war, around 4,000 Muslims were re-located to Waterloo, Iowa. The local meat processing plant was short on skilled labor and a bunch of the refugees came from a region of livestock farmers. It was a perfect fit.

I found a Bosnian bakery that was open early on Sunday. I didn't see any unrecognizable baked goods, so I picked up this bag of Smoki. It's like Cheetos, but tastes like bland peanuts. It's made in Serbia. I also got a bottle of Cockta (because I'm 14), a Slovenian soda. It tasted like licorice.

Day 3 was a big day. Bernie was in town. The building on the left houses the Waterloo campaign headquarters. They blocked off a big parking space for his bus. The rally was conveniently set to take place at the convention center across the street. Trump will be at the same convention center on Monday.

But before the 2pm rally, I had more doors to knock. I drove 30 minutes east to Independence (population 6,000). It's the county seat of Buchanan County (population 21,000). The conditions were atrocious. I couldn't walk on the street because of traffic. I couldn't walk on the sidewalks because they were covered with ice. I knocked on 18 doors before getting back in the car to help set up for the rally. In Independence, I spotted two yard signs and they were both Bernie signs.

A couple of side notes. On the way to Independence, I got passed by this Corvette covered with a Rand Paul vinyl wrap.

And in the town of Independence, I drove by a used car dealership that had 36 Impalas in stock. The dealership only had 37 cars.

When I got back, the C-Span van was parked in front of the convention center. Other political celebrities I saw: Congressman Keith Ellison (shorter in person), Joe Klein of Time (ruder in person), and Joe Johns of CNN (had big feet).

Those white tables in the foreground were for the press. There were two banks of cameras. My job was to sign attendees in and hand them stickers and signs. I greeted journalists from Spain, Japan, and some random Central European country.

The media estimated attendance to be between 650 to 1,100. I would ballpark it at around 750. They were young and old. Down-and-out to upper middle class. I saw someone from every ethnic group, but the crowd was overwhelmingly white. The state, after all, is 91.3% white.

And here's the Man of the Hour. I've heard his speeches before, so I didn't learn anything new. I was just blown away by the enthusiasm of the crowd. People waited outside, two hours before the doors opened. Bernie, by the way, sounded just like Larry David doing a George Steinbrenner impersonation.

I ended the day with a late lunch/early dinner. This pork fritter sandwich was from the same place as where I got the pork tenderloin sandwich two days ago. But it wasn't as good. Note the tiny green speck of lettuce on the pork.

And here was a sign hanging next to my table.

Sadly, I am leaving a day early and so I won't be here to witness the caucus on Monday night. A huge snow storm is coming Tuesday morning. If I stay as scheduled, I am going to be stuck in Iowa for at least a day or two. I've got to go home.