Semantics

It's all semantics plain and simple. It's Tuesday and that means it's time for me to get up get dressed jump the bus and go downtown first to the public library and enjoy it's new little coffee shop then Wander over to assist, Incorporated and do my duty as far as signing off documents to show they've been reviewed by their citizen review board which I am part of and have been part of for decades now. I think over the years I've done this blog I've touched on my work with assist off and on and maybe even talked a little bit how I first became involved with them. If so please bear with me. Anyway when I came on board at the Independent Living Center that was the housing guy and that's all aspects of housing as far as trying to develop more housing which would be wheelchair accessible or accessible as well as assisting individuals to make their own homes more accessible particularly for those folks who have incurred a disability in the relatively short time I eat accident victim becoming paralyzed or a stroke or any number of disabling conditions that would force a home that was not necessarily a wheelchair accessible or disability accessible to having to become so. So it made sense that I made contact with agencies and programs that provided those kind of services, which I did and finagled myself inside that system to make Positive Choices for that agency or program the better service people with disabilities. Assist was one of the first I got on this citizen board of and have been on there ever since. There were short periods of time maybe up to a year in some senses where I was not active on the board like what I was going through the hospital crap that I went through a couple years ago. But now I've come back to the board and at least I'm participating on a weekly basis or whenever they have documents which need to be signed by a citizen board member. What's interesting is to see the change in the agency. When I first came on board I can't remember the guy's name now but he was quite a good fill but he is he was an architect, and later Rodger was the architect that took over after him and when Roger retired the new guy came on board. The first individuals I worked with under and then Roger we're laid back individuals and the program is pretty low-key. They referred to themselves as Community design professionals. So, I really wasn't sure what they did on some levels but I do know that they were the ones who would consider developing plans and documents to be used when remodeling a home for access I never thought more of it than that. It was interesting today when I was there waiting for my meeting to start listening to some of the folks there just talked to one another and he was on the phone talking to somebody and for the first time I heard somebody identify this agency as a group of Architects. In the first time that all made sense I've always referred to these guys as fairly self-absorbed and somewhat elitist. I was always kind of joking but they did feel that way but today it all came together and made sense. They do see themselves as Architects and they they are there's three Architects on staff besides other folks that's more than I ever saw before. I guess it doesn't really matter what they call themselves whether it's Community designers or architects I guess it's just a matter of semantics