Today I was contacted by the wife of a friend that I served with in the Army. Her husband was a fellow member of my unit in 2011. She wrote to thank me for all the work I have done with trying to help veterans, but asked that I changed my about me to no detail the events that happened. I have a huge respect for her husband and even more for how strong she has been in his absence.
I of course agreed and immediately changed the details.
So if you see any differences that is the reason.

Lately I have been doing some work with the university on students with disabilities. This all spurred from a parking ticket I received in January. First let me explain what happened with that and some of the things that have happened and what I feel is harassment by the university police and parking services departments and that will lead into how I got involved with “Students With Disabilities” here at my school.

Parking Tickets

I go to a university that is like most. They have designated parking for students that commute. Now if you have a disabled parking tag, placard, or plate, you can park in any disabled parking spot per their rules as I was told in August when I registered for classes.

What that really meant is that you still have to pay for parking for the semester or full year to park in those lots and use those disabled  parking spots. That was the start. I thought this is wrong. Although I have the GI Bill and am stable financially, not all disabled patrons are in the same boat. Some have a limited income and parking passes are outrageous. $124 per semester or $248 for the year. ON top of all the other costs for school that can be stressful.

Second, most of the lots around the campus are for staff or faculty only before 3:45 pm. So if you are like me an have most of your classes before then you must park in one of those student lots. Unfortunately, those student lots are always full and many students leave their cars there from early morning to evening and just walk campus. Now if you have a decal and a placard you can park in the faculty staff lots that have a disabled parking spot, but most are full because the disabled parking spots are VERY limited on campus. to the point that a education building that houses over 300 teacher offices alone, plus any commuting students, has only 6. This is not enough.

That brings me to the tickets. After receiving a ticket in Jan., I went to the Parking office to clear it up. They told me that my placard had expired. I don’t them yes but along with it was the temporary that must be displayed with the expired placard. She went on to explain that was not necessary that only the temp placard needed displaying. I corrected her because the law in Virginia has just changed and within the first 30 days of expiration, all temp tags must be displayed with the previous tag. I remind you this is all because my school does not recognize disabled veteran plates from out of state for disabled parking. So after I corrected her, she looked it up and I filed my appeal. The next day I sent an email to the university about all the trouble I have had. I simply said “If I am having this much trouble, I cannot imagine the amount those that are afraid to speak up have gone through. This school has a definite problem with recognition for disabled students with small door ways, poorly maintained ramp access, disabled door buttons that do not work and staff that have no clue how to handle accommodations for those with a disability.

a few days went by and I received an email back that simply stated “We would love to here from you and welcome you opinion! Please forward all parking concerns to the university parking office. Thank you.”
Really? because I didn’t send the email to the parking concerns email and I have more concerns than just parking. So I emailed back expressing that concern as well. I never heard back.

Then on the 24th of January, I received another parking ticket. For $250 dollars. For parking without a valid disabled placard. By that time I have my replaced and renewed permanent placard. Apparently because they require that the university decal be hanging from the mirror as well, they gave me a ticket for improper display of the decal because they could not read the bar code. Yet, if I had blocked my university decal, I would have received a ticket for not displaying that. So off to the parking office I went again.

I was not happy, nor cordial this time. I explained how I am feeling targeted because certain shifts of workers now know my vehicle and lots I park in at given times because of my schedule. She assured me that was not the case. After explaining what happened she used a hole punch to put a string through my parking decal. This would allow the decal and placard to be displayed correctly at the same time.

All was good for about a week. Then last week happened. It snowed and class was cancelled while I was in a building. When I came out to my vehicle I was shocked. I had a immobilizing boot on it! I was outraged. I call the parking office and they said that the officer must have looked at the record and because I technically had unpaid tickets for parking in a disabled spot they booted my car. I explained how all those were given in error and told her to look at the file. She was very apologetic, but it was going to be over an hour before an officer could come to my vehicle and remove it because it took a supervisor to do so. I was livid.

Finally they arrived and removed it and apologized again. I told them I would be talking to the Dean of Students and the Disabled Student Committee about these incidents and that there would be a formal complaint. That this has moved beyond harassment. His explanation was that the officer looked at my plate and saw the outstanding tickets and could not see my placard because snow was covering the windshield. What? I asked him why none of the other vehicles parking in the other 4 disabled spots were ticketed then? His response was “I don’t really know.” I just looked at him and got in my car and left after recording his name and badge number.

So all of that lead to a meeting yesterday with the dean of students and Disabled Student Services. After explaining all of this with my tickets, pictures, video and recordings of the events, they were very receptive. They talked with me about how the police are not trained properly on campus to understand changing law and how disabled students are seen as a nuisance the university “has to pander to.” The Dean assured me that is not hte case and they they work hard to make all of the university accessible to all students.

I went on to explain how that is not the case. Many of the areas that students can go are not wheelchair accessible. Many of the ramps are old and need replacing and repair, plus no one maintains them in inclement weather as I witness last week. Many automatic door buttons do not work and force students to go around to other entrances. Many elevators are at the ends of the buildings away from the accessible doors. Much of the recreation centers are tough to maneuver and navigate from a wheelchair or you must travel a long distance to get to an elevator. After research, there are a very limited number of rooms for living accommodations for students housed on campus. Finally, the universities definition of disability is very subjective and could leave a disabled person with very little support.

After all was said and explained the Dean took much of it down. Today I was asked to come see him this afternoon. He would like for me to speak for disabled students at the next University Improvements Board Meeting. I accepted.

Some of the disabilities that the university does very little for are PTSD, Rape Victims, Incontinence, and Phobia Disabilities. I will be focusing on these and a few improvements to policy and accommodation that could be made.

I will keep everyone posted and cross your fingers that they listen!

After 5 surgeries, 6 months in the hospital and the new addition to the family, I am finally getting back to being better.

I will be writing tonight about all the ventures of what has happened and what I learned.

Plus a little bit on my son’s arrival and all that came with that too.

Hello all. I know that I have been MIA the last few months. I have gotten a handful of emails asking if all was alright. I want to assure you that everything is now fine. I had a few things all happen at once and although that should not be an excuse, I should not have left you all hanging like that. I am sorry first to those that have listened and have been very supportive. Second, I am sorry to Marc from wearingadultdiapers.com – He has been great in helping me out and I left him on the hook for far too long. I will be posting his episode here soon that we recorded all the way back in July. (I know)

What has happened
I had to 3 emergency surgeries and the recovery has been slow and painful. On top of that I have a wife that is 8 months pregnant and have had to focus attention there as well. Lastly, my dog. He is one of my best friends. He has been diagnosed with cancer and is only 6 years old. He has a very short time left and after surgeries for him did not help, I have been trying to spend time with him and make him comfy. The plus side is he gets to eat whatever he wants. Yesterday we cooked and shared a package of bacon.

I will be back at it this weekend. Thank you everyone and know I did not abandon you all, just took a break.
Thank you,
Archer

It’s been a brutal month and a half.
I have a dog that is my best friend that is not doing well and is on his second surgery, I had to have surgery myself to fix a back issue, and recovery has been tough.
I owe it to my listeners to be better at posting.
The good news is that I have been in talks with a few different people and things have been going well on that end.
I am officially sponsored by XP Medical and have been working with in the pre-stages of some other things. More will come on that as things progress.
Thank you all for being patient, and I will have two podcasts up here in the next few days.

I have received a lot of emails about creating a facebook page for the podcast and stuff. I want to put it out there that I have no plans on doing that right now. There are so many great support communities, their is no need for me to toss the podcast or blog into the pool.
People can comment or share the blog, it’s post and the podcast on thier own pages already.
I have the Tumblr page and a Twitter account, always free to hit me up there. Facebook just attracts too much security and behavioral problems from people. If you are interested in setting it up and maintaining it let me know and we will talk.