Monthly Archives: June 2012

Adding a new user in ParaPlan

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As agencies grow, they often have to add new ParaPlan users. This is a step-by-step walk through on how to do that.

  1. Click “All Elements” on the sidebar

    Step 1

  2. Click “Users” in the Element list

    Step 2 1

  3. Click “New User” in the Finder

    Step 3

  4. Populate name and username, then press “Apply Changes”

    Step 4

  5. Click “Permissions” button and set the users level of permission.

    Permissions

  6. Expand “Change Password” expander, leave existing password blank, enter the desired password twice, then click “Change Password” button.

    Step 5

  7. Click “Save and Close” on User window.

    Step 6

The new user should be able to log on to ParaPlan and jump right in. If the new user would like to learn more about ParaPlan, they should view our training documents.

Why I’m glad I busted my iPhone

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This afternoon I was pulling my phone off the charger when it slipped off the kitchen counter and behind the fridge. I braced myself as I pulled out the fridge and retrieved it from between a mouse trap and a recently  dropped Cheerio. My worst fear was realized when I saw the busted-up, splintered glass front. I was frustrated, upset and looking for someone to blame. There wasn’t anyone to blame, so I just stood there wondering how this could have happened to me. After all, I was the careful one.

My wife and I are very different. We were raised in different environments and have had different emphases placed on us throughout our upbringing. As it turns out, my wife is a lot more careless than I am with stuff – especially technology. This has caused much more frustration than I’m willing to admit over the years throughout the bathed laptops and short life span of cell phones.

Over the last couple of weeks, God has been laying on my heart to accept what I consider to be a flaw of my wife being hard on things and to not be so high and mighty about my ability to care for my stuff. I expect endless latitude for my flaws and that my “goodness” should tip the scales. However, I don’t often extend the same courtesy to my wife. So she’s not careful. So what. Even if it costs our family money, it will be a fraction of what we will make in our lifetime. I’m willing to pay a percentage to the company managing our IRA, why should I not be willing to pay a fraction of a percent in “fees” to lay off my wife a little bit and show compassion rather than frustration when she irons her macbook (yeah, it’s happened).

So I sit here looking at my busted up phone, considering my options, I’m grateful to have learned a valuable lesson. I’ll probably not get it fixed right away so it can be a reminder to myself. Because unlike my wife’s sunglasses, old habits can be hard to break.

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The birth of Landon Hibbard

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Just as dawn was breaking into our bedroom window last Wednesday, my wife delivered our third child into my hands. The world stood still as I lifted our new baby up out of the water and onto my wife’s chest. Frozen in time and flooded with emotion it was a moment of closeness that will always be carved into our hearts. Determining the sex was an afterthought although we were thrilled to find out it was a boy and quickly named him Landon.

Seeing my wife do such an amazing thing will always make me so proud. Even with it being the third time around, it just makes me feel so lucky to be married to such a powerful woman. We could have 10 more babies and I’d be jaw-to-the-floor in astonishment and awe every single time. I’ve been asked if it bothers me to see my wife in that much pain and it doesn’t. I know she is in pain, but she is doing it to make something amazing and I’m filled with so much pride that the pain is secondary. As husbands we are told to protect our wives from pain, but in childbirth it is our job to be there with them in the pain.

The whole thing was an incredible experience and I can’t do the entire thing justice, so go read my wife’s post here. I will say the birth was everything we have always wanted. Our first was born in a hospital in Lawrence. It was a good birth and the surrounding experience was pretty good, but we knew we wanted a little bit more control and the ability to dictate the how’s and when’s. With our second we found a midwife that we liked, but didn’t really like her facility. After several other failed attempts to get a midwife, we felt that God was trying to steer us away from a home birth and we conceded to another hospital birth. The experience was textbook. They didn’t listen to our wishes, they tried to rush us and all-in-all treated my wife and daughter like any other patients. Pregnancy is not a sickness, folks.

When we found out we were pregnant again, we interviewed a couple midwives and decided on Cheryl Gates. The entire journey was top-notch: from the appointments where my wife chose to not be weighed or checked and was respected to the birth where our every wish was granted to the fact that 90 minutes after Landon was born, everybody had cleared out and we were just hanging out in our bedroom.

There are many more pictures on my wife’s post and several more on my instagram. Here a few that I particularly like (and that my wife allowed me to post).

About 4 hours before baby came. Hanging out in our room.

Our friend Lizz was there taking pictures and giving support. She is also a doula.

Bringing my new son up to meet his Mom.

Waiting patiently in the next room to meet their new brother.

Our newly ReDim’ed crazy family.

Extension Method to return dates in range

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While setting up some unit tests, I needed to get a list of all the dates between two dates. The best way to implement helper functions like these are to put them in an Extension Method.

public static List<DateTime> DistinctDates(this DateTime dt, DateTime endDate)
{
    var start = dt;
    var end = endDate;
    if (start.Date == end.Date) return new List<DateTime>() { start };
    if (start > end)
    {
        start = endDate;
        end = dt;
    }

    var rv = new List<DateTime>();
    rv.Add(start);
    var diff = (end - start).TotalDays;
    for (int i = 1; i < diff; i++)
    {
        rv.Add(start.AddDays(i));
    }
    rv.Add(end);
    return rv;
}