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Nearly everyday something that my new HTC EVO (Sprint) phone can do makes me feel empowered and excited to have such a piece of technology in my pocket.

Last week I had a trip to Indianapolis that was going to interfere with a package being delivered to my church office. We don’t have anyone else in the church building during the day usually, so I was a bit concerned with making sure that Mr. FedEx would still deliver the package and that I could have someone come and pick it up instead of it being left outside to be trashed by the weather.

Enter, “Parcels“. After a quick search for Android apps that deal with package-tracking, I stumbled upon Parcels and with a simple touch-click was downloading and installing.

Parcels instantly allowed me to enter in my tracking information (that the shipper had previously provided me via e-mail) and “add” this package to my list of packages I wanted to track. The app provides support for tracking our major U.S. delivery services including FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, and even allows us to skip the “who” and enter in information for anything coming from Amazon.com!

Once the information was entered, Parcels immediately began tracking my package and offered to keep me posted via alerts sent directly to my phone and even allowed me to choose how often it would attempt to update the status of my package!

Because of Parcels, I was able to make my trip to Indianapolis, keep instant-track of my package and note within 10-minutes of its delivery and call and ask someone to pick it up at the door for me!

Interested in downloading Parcels for your Android OS Phone? Click here!

I didn’t expect to enjoy 3:10 to Yuma as much as I did. This was another borrowed-from-the-library flick that I didn’t hear much about when it was in theaters.

It’s definitely a Western for this generation. I was disappointed in the on-screen language that took place from nearly every character in the movie.

As I watched I tried to imagine what it must’ve been like to live in the West in the 1800’s carrying pistols everywhere you went, wondering what Russel-Crowe-like bad-guy was hiding around the next canyon waiting to shoot you for your pocket watch.

The redeeming storyline of “bad guy (Crowe) still has a little bit of good in him” was a bit misleading at the end of the film and even a bit confusing.

I never grew up watching “old Westerns” except every once in a while, but if the trend of recreating “old Westerns” continues, I might be able to get into that genre of film!

I received my latest Anne Rice novel in the mail early this week and finished reading it just yesterday. I couldn’t put it down.

The book chronicles fictionally Jesus’ life just before his three-year ministry and concludes with the water-to-wine miracle at the wedding.

This is the second book in Rice’s latest series, “Christ the Lord”, and if you remember, I read and reviewed the first book back in August of ’06. I enjoyed reading it as much or maybe even a bit more than the first book and loved imagining the story taking place as I read the words.

The most striking part of the story for me was Rice’s take on Christ being tempted. Rice gives new clarity to Hebrews 4:14-16:

14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. [ESV]

Those verses to a young man like myself growing up trying to be like Jesus was always a curious thought because the only temptations we read about Jesus having were in the wilderness by Satan and those temptations weren’t nearly as tempting to a young teenager!

Ms. Rice gives a great picture of Jesus the man – fully-man – being tempted in thought and action and yet NOT succumbing to the temptations presented to him!

I know the book would be a great discussion-starter for any group of people willing to read it together – with the realization that it is fictional account of the life of Christ built around some extra-biblical stories and the wonderful imagination of Anne Rice.

I can’t wait for Anne’s next book, “Called Out of Darkness” to be released next month.