When one is possessed with doubt, that though he call upon the Lord he cannot be heard, and that God has turned his heart from him, and is angry,…he must…arm himself with God’s Word, promising to hear him. As to the when and how God will hear him, this is stark naught; place, time, and person are accidental things; the substance and essence is the promise.–Martin Luther

As some of you may already know, I have been plagued recently by the systematic destruction of most of my electronics. The problems started when my 4th Gen. 20 gig iPod bit the dust. Close on the heals of that loss was the loss of my life’s blood, my Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop. Follow that up with the further loss of my Palm T|X PDA, and you can see that I was hurting badly. To make matters worse, my oldest son is using the Desktop PC to do 95% of his homeschooling this year. Needless to say I was feeling disconnected in a huge way. Then something wonderful happened…my son’s phone quit working two months out of warranty. The result of this latest pull from the technology vacuum that seems to be hovering around my house was the purchase of a device that has put me back into the land of the living, my HTC AT&T 8525 (also known as the HTC Hermes). Pop the SIM Card out of my old phone and into the 8525, pop the SIM Card out of my son’s broken phone and into my old phone, and presto…SmartPhone magic.

This device is truly remarkable. I can check my email any time and anywhere, surf the web at my discretion, work on sermon prep with the help of Olive Tree Bible software and Microsoft Word Mobile, chat with friends via iMov Messenger (even in the dark thanks to the backlit qwerty keyboard with an ambient light sensor), take 2 megapixel pictures when the occasion calls for it, and even capture a video of the gas station being robbed complete with audio. Did I mention it was a phone, and that I can dial with the sound of my voice? All this for $325 (after mail-in rebate). Now I can take my time saving up for a new MacBook Pro without being disconnected from the world! Below I will include a picture I took with my 8525, as well as a video. In addition I’ve included a list of features.

• Tri-band UMTS / HSDPA High-Speed Wireless Data Network Support (2100 MHz and 850 / 1900 MHz)
• Quad-band GSM Worldphone
• Stereo Bluetooth 2.0 / Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) / Infared / Mini-USB Connectivity
• Push To Talk (I disabled this useless button using PTTfix)
• 2.0 MP Camera With Built-in Flash And Video
• Up To 51 MB User-Available Memory For Persistent Storage
• 128 MB Flash ROM / 64 MB SDRAM
• MiniSD Card Slot (I Will Eventually Add A 2 Gig Card And Double My iPod Shuffle Storage)
• Hands-Free Communication With Speakerphone And Headphone Jack
• Samsung 400 MHz Processor
• QUALCOMM 3G HSDPA
• Integrated Trackwheel For Ease Of Navigation
• Touch Screen With Stylus
• Easy Text Entry With Sliding QWERTY keyboard
• Windows Mobile 5.0 With Direct Push Technology (Free Upgrade To Windows Mobile 6.0 Soon)
• Access Your Corporate And Personal E-mail
  • Xpress E-mail
  • Good Mobile Messaging
  • POP3 / IMAP
  • Microsoft ActiveSync
• Sync Your Contact, Calendar, And Task Information Via Microsoft Outlook Mobile (No Microsoft Outlook Included…Disappointing)
• Create, View, Edit Microsoft Word Mobile And Excel Mobile Files, View PowerPoint Mobile And .pdf Files
• Browse The Web With Internet Explorer Mobile
• Featuring AT&T Music And Cellular Video (Useless)

• Talk Time: Up To 5 Hours
• Standby Time: Up To 10 Days
• 4.4 x 2.3 x 0.9 Inches
• 5.7 Oz
• 2.8″ 240 x 320 Color TFT LCD Screen

(click for full image)

Last Saturday my wife attended a wedding. There was a beautiful cake complete with the obligatory photos of the bride and groom cutting the cake hand in hand. One little problem…the cake was a fake! To be sure there was cake at the wedding banquet, but it was simple sheet cake. Several words come to mind, but perhaps the best is just plain old stupid.