Knowing in advance that most of you will madly delete this message due to its generic form-letter quality, I submit this brief summary of my travels thus far.
Read this as "delete this message as soon as you have read it."
I did manage to scrape together some olive leaves for rigging,
Does anyone have a technical meaning for this term? I have never heard it before, but of course this could be some insider lingo related to climbing or electronics.
After a rather lengthy interrogation courtesy of the Israeli Airport Police and then Internal Security, I set off to City Center
Does everyone who enters Israel have "lengthy interrogations" with Israeli Internal Security?
Being tired and anxious to set down my 200' climbing rope (wrapped around my head in a manner suggestive of certain Palestinian tribes), I wimped out and got a room at a "regular" establishment, rather than a C-W or C-H Motel as those of you familiar with Prometheus Towers SOP whilst traveling, will understand.
OK...he is carrying 200 feet of rope on his head? Wrapped in a manner suggesting the headress of certain Palestinian tribes? Does this not seem odd? Like perhaps he is letting the reader know he is trying to make contact with certain Palestinians?
Furthermore, what is a C-W or C-H Motel? What does THAT mean? What is the Prometheus SOP whilst traveling?
several free gallons of tap water
OK...this is another weird thing. Why would you brag about getting several free gallons of tap water? Do they CHARGE for water at hotels in Israel? This makes no sense to me unless it is some sort of code.
Olive green slacks and a khaki vest, sure to say "I might be a westerner but I won't admit it" right away. On my way to Jordan I got several comments from the many border guards I saw, so I am confident my mission succeeded.
This is another cryptic comment. WHAT mission succeeded? Looking less like a westerner? Or is this another way to tell his reader that he accomplished some other mission?
I left Tel-Aviv for the Jordan Valley Border Crossing, passing some beautiful land and a large prison on the way.
Again he notices a prison. If I were traveling through Israel, I doubt a prison would be something I remarked upon or noticed. An odd comment, whose meaning I can't fathom.
into good ole' Arab-speaking lands
This is a REALLY odd comment from a Jew, particularly one who was, according to one account, going back to being observant.
So I safely reached Amman and found a really cool place called Firas Palace which featured an Elevator and a tape recorded sound track reminiscent of the Havana Inn in Kampala, circa 1998.
Why is the "E" in elevator capitalized? Could be a typo, but he seems to have made no other typos. We also learn from this that he was at the Havana Inn in Kampala in 1998, unless this is a signal that he hooked up with some Cubans (tin foil has now completely encased me, by the way).
will give more detail on my next message. For the stockholders out there – we've made some contacts and I am seeing some opportunities here. Bear with me and I promise dividends. For the mean time I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday of whatever form you chose. Feel free to respond anytime you like…
Can we find any other e-mails? Since the company wasn't publicly traded, he could be referring to members of the family, or he could be referring to something else.
FOX AND FRIENDS WILL COVER SOMETHING ABOUT MICHAEL MOORE, ACCORDING TO MY HUSBAND.
According to Glenn Beck, who flew to Israel last year, they/Israel conducts extremely detailed, lengthy interrogations when flying El Al (sp?). It is probably the same for entering the nation proper by other means.
SOP=standard operating procedure
This is the sentence I find peculiar:
For the stockholders out there – we've made some contacts and I am seeing some opportunities here. Bear with me and I promise dividends.
If Prometheus Methods was not a public company and had no stockholders, this is clearly a message.
I wonder how many people he sent this e-mail to, and who they were?
I just noticed a post in which Howlin says that Berg's family and friends were the investors, so it's possible that "stockholders" referred to them. In which case it wouldn't be a particularly suspicious reference.
However, since it seems from earlier threads that the company was unregistered and there aren't any records on how it was structured, what profits it made, etc., I guess this would be pretty hard to check out.
This entire e-mail is full of puzzling things.
I think these may be hotel classifications. In Spain, C-H indicates a low-end boarding house type of place (Casa de Huespedes), usually run in somebody's home or extra rooms. Perhaps the same classifications are used in certain formerly European-influenced parts of Africa, where Berg appears to have spent some time.
I think it probably meant that he normally stayed in these sort of low-end places but this time had to stay at a regular hotel.
Can we find any other e-mails?Here are FOUR of them that Quilla found, currently posted on www.nickberg.org:
Please send your stories about our friend Nick Berg to
stories@nickberg.org
Nick Berg
A Friend, Philosopher, Dreamer, and Achiever
A taste of Nick Berg's business - Prometheus Towers
Email from Nick BergA taste of Nick's adventures
Prometheus Towers in Africa
Email from Nick BergPrometheus Towers in the Middle East
Email from Nick BergPrometheus Towers in Iraq
Email from Nick Berg
Thank you for the great job of analyzing that email! Like you, I thought the content was odd and found many questionable phrases in it. I really need to go read his other emails to get familiar with his writing style. Howlin, you gave a link earlier to nickberg.org. Is that where the email came from?
We don't want to read anything into it that isn't there, but on first reading, I had the same exact questions Miss Marple had about it.
We went on vacation last week a nd I must have missed this VERY important link...can you prvide please?
NO ONE writes like this Normally....NO ONE!! Thanking you in advance!!
I made a comment about his remark about "good ol' Arab-speaking lands". I agree with your assessment of this email. I was pretty tired last night when I read it, but it just didn't sound like a normal chatty note.
I wonder who all the recipients of this email were.
Thank you for your notes on that email.
I read it last night and it struck me as odd, but I didn't pause and parse it out.
I will say that I was struck right off the bat by the "delete" comment. I had a flash of it being an attempt to joke about "form letters", but a strange way of expressing it.
The other thing that really jumped out was the "free water".
The prison comment made me review his letter to see where he said he saw it, and the "olive" reference caught my eye but I didn't pause to think about code and such.
Strange.