My Trip January 2-5, 2007 from Manhattan to Curacao ... from one small island to another ... Steve Bergen

and where colors are paramount

revised Friday Jan 5th at 8am am Miami time

Finally, yesterday ... I got my cell phone working with Verizon national plan by typing in a strange ridiculous code ##DIALUP ... same as ##342587 ... you have to type it in SUPER QUICKLY to activate the dial up networking feature of the E815 that they have disabled ... it is close to unbelievable that no one at Verizon ... not the sales person and now the tech person I spoke to ... know anything whatsover about this ... this is posted on this Web site

I went swimming at Asphalt Green this morning at 6am so that I could see if this could be the first day of my life when I would swim in two countries

the lines for American were so long that I was in a panic ... yes, I know I should have printed my boarding pass yesterday if I had half a brain ... as it turned out, I did not even confirm my flight until I was walking back from swimming at 7am ... yes, the lines were the longest I have ever seen ... we are talking about 3 sides of a rectangle where each side had at least 500 people on it ... several different American Airlines people gave me contradictory info about using the machines ... I tried one machine and it said CANNOT BE USED FOR INTN'L FLIGHT ... I circled the long lines contemplating my fate ... someone then directed me to the NEW machines for which you had to swipe your passport

It is now 9:33 am and I am on board .. I have a window seat ("yuck") and should have booked the good seats with more leg room ... this never happens when I travel with Lynne ... oh well, I do hope that they serve gin at 10 am ... we will see ;-)

next stop will me to see my mother in the Miami airport .. we are supposed to meet at the First Class counter of American Airlines ... I say it is 80/20 that this works out ;-)

Our plane stayed on the ground (22 planes ahead of us) for an extra hour

Leaving NYC, I had the best view of the entire Manhattan Island ... I could see most of the bridges (most of which I have walked over), central park res and entire East river

how dumb am I? I packed an extra battery for my laptop but put it into the overhead compartment

I finally finished transcribing the 2.5 minute audio clip from Jim Collins on consensus vs intelligent decisions ... There is a huge distinction between consensus decisions and intelligent decisions and usually the two are negatively correlated. When we study where the best decisions come from and how the best decisions were made as companies made their shifts from Good to Great, we were struck by the absence of consensus decisions. What you had were environments characterized by immense debate ... and I mean genuine debate ... yelling ... screaming ... pounding tables ... veins bulging out ... throwing things across the room ... tell me "where's your data" ... let's put our eyeballs to eyeballs ... let us discuss this ... where is your evidence ... tell me what this means ... I draw a different conclusion ... that very vigorous violent engaged dialogue, discussion and debate ... that was clearly there ... so these were not decisions that were taken in martinette style, dictatorial, "I'm just going to go make the decision" style ... very very rooted in dialogue, debate, discussion, data, brutal facts, the whole bit ... but not one major decision ... not one major decision as the companies went from Good to Great was taken at a point of consensus ... every one of those major decisions [was] made by an executive while there was still substantial disagreement in the air ... your job, your responsibility as an executive is to reach a point of understanding where you are right ... and then to make the decision that is right ... that usually happens before there is agreement ... and if you wait to a point of agreement, I am reminded of that story of Alfred Sloane sitting around with his executives and at one point he says "Gentlemen, I take it that we are in all in agreement on this decision" ... and everybody nodded their heads in agreement ... and then Mr. Sloane said "then I suggest that we postpone this decision until we generate some genuine disagreement so that we might know what the decision is all about."

it is now 1:18 and we have landed ... once again, the pictures in my wallet have provided a 100% foolproof method for maintaining the safety of the flight

it is now 4pm and I am waiting for the second flight ... it is amazing how popular and how contested every electric plug is ... there are 2 plugs every 100 feet and people fight over who gets to use them ... as soon as someone vacates, someone swoops in to grab that plug

I met my Mom for lunch and we connected even though we went to different American Airlines counters ... then I met Haydee von Sternberg from Chapin who was here in Miami visiting her mother ... we crossed paths as I was heading to my gate, so I jumped the rail and fortunately did not make a fool of myself

finally found a recipe for dealing with Starbucks coffee ... I told the sales person to mix 3/4 of coffee and 1/4 of hot water ... first cup of Starbucks that I have ever felt was tolerable

onto my TO DO list ... get a magnet from Curacao for Dianne

Wow! I am in heaven ... I just tried SLINGBOX using my national wireless Verizon and it works! I am getting speeds of 160KPS to 250KPS and am watching television from Lexington MA ... amazing ... Verizon broadband really works

Whoops ... oh, my ... I just had a BAGEL moment ... I was sitting on the floor with my Starbucks, my laptop and my Slingbox connection ... I looked up at the clock and it was 4:31 and the plane was scheduled to depart at 4:40 ... wow ... I closed everything ... laptop, cell phone ... and scrambled to the front desk only to find out that the flight was delayed and that nobody boarded yet ... whew ... a little panic ... no big deal ... anyway ... the good thing is that I switched locations and seized some electricity

Click here for info about Curacao ... I knew NOTHING about where I am going until now ... very interesting ... it so amazingly close to the equator ... I think I might take a long piece of rope and try the belt around the earth

Day 2 ... Wednesday morning January 3rd from Harold's terrace

movie on flight yesterday was NeverWas with William Hurt ... audio was scratched out for last 20 minutes so we never heard what never was at the end
famous baseball player ... andrew jones Peter Stuyvesant went from governor of curacao to governor of new amsterdam (NYC) so he went from that island (curaccao) in 1642 to that island (manhattan) in 1647 ... not sure if he went thru miami like me
oldest still functioning synagogue ... Mikve Israel-Emanuel Synagogue in Willemstad .. I saw it last night with Harold and met Mr. Tibbs (see story below)
Shell refinery and oil in 1914-1918
Willemstad is the capital and is divided into two halves ... Punda and Otrobanda ... Harold lives in Punda ... total popuation of Willemstad is 135,000
Curacao is just 12 degrees North of the equator
The island is the largest and most populous of the three so-called ABC islands (for Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao)
The Dutch West India Company made Curacao a center for slave trade in 1662 ... Harold says that its location near South America make it a center in 2006 for drug traffic to Holland
The discontent and the antagonisms between Curacao social groups culminated in large scale rioting and protest on May 30, 1969.
Time zone is same as Eastern Canada ... if it is 7am in NYC then it is 8am in Curacao
Same latitude as Panama on West edge of Venezuela ... halfway between Aruba and Bonaire ... this map shows the latitude of 12-15 for Curacao and 0 for Brazil
sources for above info? wikipedia and www.curacao.com
We had dinner last night at a restaurant on the ocean ... afterwards, we met Mr. Tibbs while looking at the synagogue with its sign from 1732 ... he had his named spelled with needles on his arm ... he knew Larry Bird (not personally) and I got the pleasure to teach him Larry's uniform number and birthday ... I tried to teach him about binary but he did not catch on too well ... he asked for money and Harold gave him $3
Last night I slept in a mosquito tent for the first time, a Schiff tradition ... apparently, you can get bit up by the bugs pretty badly here so each bed is draped with netting on all sides ... kind of strange but it worked ... no bites this morning ;-)
Yes, I did get to swim around midnight last night ... Harold's place is beautiful and his back terrace over looks the ocean facing Venezuela ... we swam in the little cove that opens to Venezuela behind the swimming pool ... this was about 18 hours after my morning swim in NYC
Wed morning, I went for a walk in Harold's neighborhood ... everything and everyone has a gate ... Harold has a gate ... the convenience store has a gate so that you cannot go into the store but it is "closed stacks" like some university libraries
Other pictures

Thursday Day 3 (Jan 5)

I woke up this morning thinking about the scene yesterday when I was standing in a tourist area holding my paper palm pilot with some currency from my pocket in my hand and trying to draw myself a map of the tourist area so that I could figure out how to navigate to the synagogue.

A total stranger who was a native of the island comes up to me and says "hey mister, you better put that money away in your pocket" ... I told her that I thought everyone was honest here and she proceeded to lecture me on on how there are bad people in bad neighborhoods but even here someone will come up to you and grab that money from you. She then pointed in the direction of where Harold lives and said "you have to be especially careful when you walk in that neighborhood."

In any case, I did find the synagogue and took pictures of the mikvah and one inside from the front and one from the back where photographs were allowed ... it was so interesting that the floor of the synagogue was sand and that virtually nothing except for one carving in wood revealed its Jewish identity .. the explanation for the sand had to do with the fact that back in Spain or Portugal, it was common for sand to be used on the floors of synagogues to muffle the sound during the 15th century Inquisition ... see this article by Judith Fein or this one by Dr. Aviva Ben-Ur.

After touring the synagogue and the associated museum, I met Harold for lunch and we sat on the river watching the big boats go by and the 200 foot bridge being rotated to allow them through ... Harold showed me his office which he shares with 3 colleagues from the Medical School at St. Martinus University where Harold is the Dean of Clinical Science

I went snorkeling with Harold last night around 6pm right in his backyard ... colorful fish and colorful rocks and coral reefs ... once again, colors are paramount in Curacao ... the juxtaposition of the condo where Harold lives and the hotel next door where the Queen Beatrix of Amsterdam vacations is amazing ... right outside of Harold's condo is the the place where Harold's neighbor sleeps nightly in his own self made outside homeless shelter

after snorkeling we went to a restaurant that where all the tables were on the beach ... we met a friend of Harold's from his salsa dancing group who was born in Israel and then moved to Holland before coming here ... she worked for a drug company which gave me a chance to share my Pfeizer trivia from Brooklyn about how "Pfizer was founded in 1849 on Bartlett Street in Brooklyn. Two immigrant cousins, chemist Charles Pfizer and confectioner Charles Erhart, combined their skills to produce santonin, an almond-flavored treatment for intestinal worms that became an immediate sensation. Pfizer was launched." ... we then taught her binary (to see if she could pick it up faster than Mr. Tibbs) and then proceeded to play the "3-5-7 game of sticks" using sugar packets ... the game with one solution from National University of Singapore ... my solution and the explanation is better, I think!

Click here for the large size picture of the 3 colorful houses that I have now used as a theme on this Web blog ... it looks like it was drawn with a painting program or a paintbrush ... in reality, it was taken by my cell phone after cleaning the lens ("amazing how the dirt on my cell phone has been distorting all my pictures for a month")

Day 4 ... the end ... Friday morning January 5th from Harold's terrace ... yesterday was the Day of the Iguana

spent most of the day yesterday at the beech reading USC Steven Sample's book ... The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership ... fascinated by his advice that a contrarian leader should ALWAYS procrastinate on important decisions ... he calls this artful procrastination and I guess it is an extension of what I have called the Roger's principle
we were surrounded by iguanas who would climb down the rocks and come as close as 33 inches towards where we sitting on the beach ... this video may even load if you have quicktime
I got a better picture of the sign posted behind the homeless person across from Harold's condo ... it turns out it is written in Dutch and a friend of Harold's translated for us and told us the political back story ... I supposed I could have asked Lulu but I never found time to do so
we went to a blues club last night for dinner and then met up with Harold's Dutch and Curacao friends at midnight ... hoping the Jets will be singing the blues on Sunday evening after the game
so far, I have gone without half and half or cream in coffee for 3.5 days ... no restaruants or stores seem to stock it here ... no wonder the people are so thin ... oh well, I will do without ... ... this video may even load if you have quicktime ... one of Harold's friends finally told us which store in town sells "double cream" ... no time to go there ... off to the slavery museum this morning and then the plane leaves at 4pm ... Harold suggested we leave at 3pm but I am way too "cream-cheese" for that ... I insisted we leave at 2 pm and "allow time for mistakes to happen" as I frequently tell my children

Friday morning I got the security officer ("Mr. Janga") to translate the sign across from Harold's condo ... here are my notes ...

to Minister Pechtold (Amsterdam)

seestelyke ... need more 

armoede ... bible studies
onderwijs ... school teachers 

gezondheidszorg ... doctors and medicine

woning nood ... houses

krimi - naliteit ... crime is not the solution

clementie voor 2 jongeren ... be merciful ... 2 children who have been killled

Then I walked to town and wrote the words to my latest song called Audacity based on Poison Ivy by the Coasters ... I saw a guy carrying a guitar and I decided I would have the audacity to ask him if he would play the song for me and that I would pay him for it ... nothing venture, nothing gained ... he said yes and then asked me to sing the tune so that he could figure out the chords and the finger picking ... his name was Rubin and our jam session on the streets went so well that he asked for my phone and address and said he would spend some time and orchestrate it and send me the results ... click here to judge for yourself ... the file is 3meg streaming, so be patient!
I then walked to the museum called Kura Hulanda
As I write this final entry, I am sitting in the Miami airport having done perhaps one of the dumbest things in my life ("lots of competition") ... I bought two bottles of gin in Curacao from the duty-free store since the price of $15 was dramatically lower than the $35 price we pay in NYC or Boston ... I then flew from Curacao to Miami not knowing that I had liquids in my carry on bag ... at Miami security gate, I realized my mistake and then had to decide to let them confiscate the bottles or else check my bag ... I chose the latter and will find out in NYC when I land at 11:30 pm if I made yet another BAGEL mistake. UPDATE? all turned out fine!
Below is the view of the sunset from the beach Harold and I went to Thursday night, a fitting closing image!