Copasetic Flow

While wondering around Stockholm, I found a building that had what appeared to be Scottish Rite symbols on its entrance. It is the home of the Tempel Riddare Ordens in Stockholm. Of course, wikipedia had the anwer . It turns out that this is an organization that probably has Masonic roots and was founded in the United States in 1845 as part of the temperance movement. It was originally known as the "Marshall Temperance Fraternity" and promoted complete abstinence from alchoholic beverages. It now exists only in Scandanavia and is know as Tempel Riddare Ordens. Another Masonic tie: From the Charge of the Entered Apprentice Degree: "... and [a duty] to yourself, in avoiding all irregularity and intemperance, which may impair your faculties, or debase the dignity of your profession. ..."

This week's Business of the Week is: Nirvana Design Group Where you can get: Now, this is an awesome place to work! Web design, fashion, photography, and kite surfing all in one place! Talk about one stop shopping! And speaking of kite surfing, here's a few kite surfers in Tel Aviv, about this time last year.

Updated March 26, 2008 12:37 PM CMT I'm coming up to speed on the new Google Visualization APIs this week like a lot of other people. As I'm working through my new application that uses this API and Google Docs spreadsheets, I'm running into some issues that aren't covered in the online documentation for the API . I'll post those issues along with their resolution here, so if you run into problems, this is a good place to look. If you run into problems that aren't covered, please add them to the comments section. Of course, the first place to look if you run into issues is on the Google Visualization API Group . Column labels don't work like you might think they should Throughout the Query Language Reference the examples use the labels from the following table: name string dept string lunchTime timeofday salary number hireDate date age number isSenior boolean seniorityStartTime datetime John Eng 12:00:00 1000 2005-03-19 35 true 2007-12-02 15:56:...

Day 1 Day 2 The third day in Samothraki, I took off on a tour around the Eastern edge of the island. The variety of sights within a small space is stunning. I visited an ancient temple site overlooking the ocean, hiked in the mountains to an idyllic, deserted waterfall, and wondered around a black pebbled beach! I've written previously about the The Temple of the Great Gods , so I won't add too much. The site is amazingly well preserved considering that Alexander the Great's parents met here. The statue of 'Winged Victory' that is now on display at the Louvre was found here. By the way, France and England, the folks in Greece would like their stuff back. A short ride from the temple and into the hills behind Θερμα, brings you into a dense forest on the mountainside. You can hike back in to a series of waterfalls. I only went up to the first one. In the off-season, the area was completely deserted except for a few goats. A ride east and then south along the ea...

Yesterday, I added a little curiosity entry about a school I came across in Stockholm. The northern side of the school was emblazoned with what appeared to be several Masonic symbols. I wondered what it was, so I did a little digging, and here's what I found. First, here are references to the sources: Symbols of Growth: The Decoration of Swedish Schools 1890-1920 from Article 4, Inferno Volume VIII, 2003 1 THE SWEDISH CONSTITUTION, Nordic Esotericism in Baroque Splendour by W.Bro Alex G. Davidson The school pictured is the Adolf Fredrick Folkskola. The school and the symbols are mentioned in the 'Decoration' article: "The towering north edifice is emblazoned with blue and gold shields representing school subjects, each pierced by a beam of light from the sun and burning torch motif. The theoretical (older) subjects orbit around the sun, whilst the practical (newer) subjects emanate from the torch. The torch was a subtle play on the name of this district of Stockhol...

Dateline March 14th, 2008: Stockholm, Sweden I just spotted this on the side of a school here. How many Masonic symbols can you find? :) Does anyone know more about what this is?

We've all heard: Take the Time to Smell the Roses! Well, I say, " Take the Time to Watch the Tonka Toys!!! " I'm a little tuckered out tonight, so I don't have much to write. But, I did see something cool today! Remember when you were a kid and wanted to go watch the giant trucks and earth-movers at the construction site? On my walk to work this morning in Kista, Sweden, I finally got to do it! They had set up a big construction site right outside my building and were busily moving rocks!!! With a huge grin, I just stood back and watched for awhile. I had my cell phone with me, so from one full-grown kid who will never grow up to another, enjoy! Oh, I almost forgot! There's an awesome song at the bottom of the post!