Skip to main content

Posts

Stockholm Business of the Week

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.

Google Visualization API: Gotchas

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:...

Samothraki: Day 3

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...

Masonic School? No. Masonic King? Yes.

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...

Blog Flash from Kista Sweden: What's This?

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?

Take Time to Watch the Tonkas! Oh,and to Listent to Colbie Caillat

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!

National Treasure, The Freemasons, Mt. Rushmore, and The Statue of Liberty

A recent post in this blog reviewed an article in the most recent issue of "Scottish Rite Journal" by Richard Fletcher that revealed further Masonic links to National Treasure: Book of Secrets . I recently communicated with Brother Fletcher via e-mail and he pointed out that Mount Rushmore, the setting for the final scenes of the movie, has even more Masonic connections. As discussed here , two of the presidents on Mount Rushmore are Masons, Washington and Roosevelt. But, that's not all. Brother Fletcher says: "The concluding scenes of the movie take place at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. The movie makes no reference to the sculptor but both Gutzon Borglum, who was the sculptor of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, and his son Lincoln Borglum were Freemasons. Following the death of his father, Lincoln Borglum was assigned the task of completing the Mount Rushmore Memorial. Gutzon Borglum was raised in Howard Lodge #35 in New York City and served as its Mas...