Official ICV “Running 4 J” Raffle Details

Posted on May 20, 2013 by

securedownloadTickets are $2.00 Each or 3 for $5. Tickets can be purchased directly from me. I will be at First Friday in Silverton Oregon on June 7th in front of Books in Time, and I will have a booth at the Turner Celebration on the 1st of June as well. If you can not attend you can contact me at nicknanda1@yahoo.com for details on where to send payment for your tickets, and I will mail them to you as soon as I receive the funds.

There are multiple prizes that can be won.

Winners will be announced on /www.facebook.com/VictimsOfCruiseCrime, Erockthepay.com, ICVblogs.com, and posted in the window at Silverton Flower Shop. As well as a business in Turner that has not yet been decided. Please “like” the Facebook page, or “follow” one or both of the blogs listed above to be certain you will see the results.

Anyone in the United States can enter. Drawing will be held on June 28th 2013. Winners will receive the prize that lands in the order they are drawn. First winner will get prize 1 second winner gets 2, and so on until all prizes have been won. Every single dollar raised from this raffle will go directly to the International Cruise Victims Association to help in the fight to provide safe and carefree fun aboard cruise ships all around the world, with the only exception being shipping costs for any prizes outside the 30 mile range.

If the winners live within 30 miles of the Silverton Oregon area I will deliver your prizes myself. Otherwise they will be mailed to the winners, or can be picked up at my home in Silverton.

Prize 1: Niwa books. These are all books by local authors. They include Chronicles of Caldor: Redemption. A fantasy by Eric Rappe’. Echoes of Avalon, a fantasy by Adam Copeland, If The Wind Took Me Away, children’s book by Jeremy Shockley. The Light Warrior, sci-fi fantasy by Cynthia Robbins, and The Lindman Story by B.B. Hartwich. All copies signed by the authors!

Prize 2: Hollywood prize pack. This includes an autographed 8×10 of Hunter Jackson from Twilight, Grimm, Castle, and other projects, who is from Scotts Mills Oregon. It also includes a tie, shirt, and pullover hoodie that were worn in the movie Hot Tub Time Machine (with certificates of authenticity), and a magazine cover prop that was also used in the film.

Prize 3: Individual Tax Return done by C&C Tax and Accounting

Prize 4: Something for Everyone! Autographed 8×10 of Hunter Jackson, Stackable cooling rack and a bottle of Cherry Chipotle BBQ sauce from Pampered Chef, Snorkel tour for 2 from Sea Paradise in Keauhou Hawaii. (trip to Hawaii not included), 4 admission passes to Oregon Garden, copy of Chronicles of Caldor: Redemption by Eric Rappe’, one large Spartan Sprint “Running 4 J” t-shirt, (more to come as donations are collected!)

Grand Prize: Silverton Getaway! Two 60 minute Massages from Silverton Bodyworks Clinic, $25 gift card for Wooden Nickel Tavern, A one night stay for 2 including breakfast and park admission to the Oregon Garden Resort, an autographed 8×10 of local actor Hunter Jackson, (more to be added as donations are received)

 

I want to thank Stephany Hayes, Emily Hanson-Gifford, Silverton Bodyworks Clinic, Heather Hubert, Wooden Nickel Tavern, Hunter Jackson, Oregon Garden and Oregon Garden Resort,  Karl O’conner, all the authors (Adam, Cindy, Bo, Jeremy)C&C Tax and Accounting, and everyone else who has helped by donating to this raffle in order to help raise awareness and funds for International Cruise Victims Association. Together we can make a change, and save lives!

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Spartan! The Impossible Dream.

Posted on May 16, 2013 by

logo4The Spartan Race. A challenge so gruelling, so impossible, so horrifying that only the best athletes in the world would ever even think of trying to finish it. A goal so unachievable that the Spartans of the past would think twice before going into battle with an obstacle course of this magnitude!

Hold on… Everything I just said? Yeah, forget about it. I am 6′ 250 lbs of couch potato and I plan on doing what I can to kick this thing in the bag!  In fact I have created a team that is going to help me with this goal. After losing my big brother to a horrible tragedy aboard a cruise ship last November I decided to build a team and run the Spartan to raise awareness for the cause of better safety within the cruise industry. What has happened since comes at a bit of a surprise.

I have watched videos of the various events and felt excitement at times, and fear at others. I am sure I will have a great deal of difficulty with many of the obstacles, but the fact that I am aware of this has me working even harder. I do not compete until August 3rd, in the Spartan Sprint in Washougal Washington. The sprint is the smallest of the Spartan races, and yet it is still enough to fill me with dread, and keep me off of my butt trying to become a 6′ 230 pounder by race day.

We are looking for more team members! Are you interested in running the race? Tell me why you want on my team. Leave a comment about your reasons. Not only will all team members get a free shirt that I designed for our team, but one person, the one who leaves the best response in my opinion, will be given a code that can be redeemed for a free entry! That is a great prize don’t you think? Take a look at http://www.spartanrace.com.

I am running for my brother. I am running to get my fat butt in shape. I am also running to raise awareness for the International Cruise Victims Association. Why are you?

SR_Lets_Do_ThisPay attention to future posts to see who is selected for the free race code! You don’t have to join my team to win. Your reasons can and should be your own! As the map below shows there are races all over the world! Find your desire, tell me about it, and take the leap that I am preparing to take right now, only you just might get to do it for free. Step into the Spartan with wonder, and step out of it with a better knowledge of who you are!map

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Villians?

Posted on May 13, 2013 by

CarnivalTriumphAs a board member for ICV I do a great deal of reading. I read from Jim Walker’s blog on Cruise Law News and I read posts on Cruise Critic, among a great many newspapers and other reports about the cruise industry that can be found online.

I have seen that sexual assault is 50-75% more likely to occur on a cruise ship than in any major city and that most of the victims are somehow mistreated by the cruise lines. I also have seen that more than half of those assaults are committed by members of the cruise staff. I have seen that on average one person goes missing from a cruise ship (and these are just the ones we know about) every two weeks. And then there are crimes such as theft that are even more common than any of the above.

I also read people’s comments on these posts. Many are people , like myself, that are concerned and wish there was a way to protect people. Some are not. Recently I read comments from a retired law enforcement officer:

“I agree with the cruise lines. People need to take responsibility for their actions. A drunk goes overboard, shame on them!!”

Really? As someone who was supposed to protect people as a career, his response is to put every single death at sea into the same box? Shame on them? I say shame on his lack of compassion towards human life, and I am greatly thankful that this person was not responsible for caring for the lives of anyone where I live during his career.

Another man said:

“I hate it when people try to vilify the cruise lines. People should take responsibility for their own actions.”

This is true. People should take responsibility for their actions. This includes the cruise lines. When a law is passed that requires them to have a man overboard system, they should have it. When a crime is committed, they should investigate it with the interest of the victim in front of the interest of the cruise line. Based on the opinions of these two commentors, police are not needed. When someone dies it is because they are neither responsible or sober. When a crime is committed it need not be investigated, because the victim should have known better than to walk by that guy, since he was about to commit a crime. It is a good thing that the first commenter is retired, since it seems all bad things in his mind are caused by drunks and there is no need for police to investigate, rendering his entire career, and in my mind life as a waste of time.

The problem here lies with the cruise lines, and if  I tend to “vilify” them, it is fully warranted. They save money at the expense of human lives. It is more important to them to hide crime from the public than it is to properly investigate them. Does everyone who goes on a cruise become a victim? No, but every woman who ever met Ted Bundy was not murdered either. I guess that means that he was actually a good guy who was improperly vilified by the public.

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Writing Again

Posted on May 8, 2013 by

Breaking News imageI have been struggling with working on book two of Chronicles. The other day, over beers with a fellow writer friend of mine named Adam Copeland, he suggested that maybe I should write a fiction story about the cruise lines to clear my head a bit. As soon as he said it, I knew it was exactly what I was going to do.
I started working on it yesterday. I am now about 6000 words in and it feels really good to be creative again.
this story is going to have hints of what happened with my brother. Mostly at the start, but it will quickly turn into something very different. Here is a rough copy of what I have written so far. This bit takes place after “David’s” brother has gone missing and he has been searching for answers. He has traveled to Florida and spoken with the police. He also received a disturbing call earlier in the day. Warning, there is some language that is not considered to be socially acceptable…. This is a rough draft, and will undergo many rewrites, but please let me know what you think!

Once back to my room I started thinking about all that I had learned. The detective thought that something was going on, so I was happy to know it was not just me. I also thought about two things I had been told in the last twenty-four hours.
Kristen: “Just be careful David! I have heard stories of what happens when someone goes after a large corporation.”
Detective Fredericks: “I don’t know. I would not imagine they would go so far as to harm your family to keep things quiet, but this is big business. If I were you I would watch my back.”
The fact that my wife in Oregon had said almost the exact same thing as the detective in Florida was not funny to me anymore. I was starting to feel like maybe I should not have come. Maybe I should just let the detectives do what they do. At that moment my phone rang again, and my mind was made up. Screw this asshole, I will get to the bottom of this, and if he hurt my brother, I will kill him myself.
I picked up the phone suddenly filled with anger. “I am not going anywhere asshole!”
“David? I hope you’re not going anywhere. I just drove for an hour to meet you.”
“Oh crap. I am sorry Mr. Walker. I thought you were someone else. I will explain in a minute.”
I could feel the anger turn to embarrassment as he replied. “Enough with the Mr. Walker, call me James, or Jim. Your choice. Should I come up, or would you like to just meet me in the lobby?”
“I will be right down. Again, sorry for the way I answered.”
“I am a lawyer David. If you think that is the worst thing I have ever heard you are sadly mistaken. See you in a moment.”
I hung up the phone, gathered myself, and headed to the lobby.

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First “Official” Review!

Posted on May 6, 2013 by

CaldorCoverArtI was just sent a message from a review blog called “Curiosity of a Social Misfit.” They just did a review of my book Chronicles of Caldor: Redemption! I am very happy to share such a great review and let you all see what others think of my book! Please take a look! http://curiosityofasocialmisfit.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/redemption-chronicles-of-caldor-by-eric.html

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Lies and Cover-ups

Posted on May 1, 2013 by

Scan_Pic0005Hello.
Tonight in Miami a story aired about the disappearance of my brother Jason from the cruise ship Eurodam. I want to talk about a few of the things in this story, but first here is a link so you can see it for yourself.

http://www.nbcmiami.com/investigations/Family-Seeks-More-Answers-in-Disappearance-of-Man-From-Cruise-Ship–205671551.html

(update) For some reason this link is not working. It does take you to the NBC 6 page. From there you can go to the home page or search “Jason Rappe’” and it will bring you to the interview. Sorry for the confusion.

I am very pleased with the story, but there are a few things within it that I would like to point out. First lets talk about the lie told at the end by the cruise line. Holland America has never once, as said in their statement, offered an open conversation about the events. In fact it is the opposite. They have been as secretive with my family and our attorney as they possibly can be. When we have requested things like names of witness we have been turned down. In no way have they been cooperative in the slightest. If you look at a post of mine at icvblog.com, titled “victim story #8″ you will be able to read some more detail about the incident, and how my family was treated.
Second, I would like to point out what Mr. Walker was saying about the reports. This is one more way that the cruise lines can deceive their passengers. The Coast Guard reports only man overboard cases that have been both reported and closed by the FBI. There are a great many problems with this but the biggest is that when someone goes missing (overboard) from a cruise ship they are almost never found. This means that the case will remain open indefinitely as a missing person and the public will never know about it. It also means that those cases that are closed are only the ones where someone was trying to hide, the person was saved, or a body was found. Two of these are great for the cruise lines. Obviously if it was someone hiding they did nothing wrong, and if they are saved the cruise lines are heroes.
It is set up so that when they are reported on this list, the public can only hear about the ones that show the cruise line at little or no fault, with the only exception being cases where a body is found.
This is a huge example of how the cruise lines manipulate their passengers.
I also want to talk about the video of Jason on the ship. They have video of him in several hallways and on deck. Many of them that it is pretty clear that it is him. Where does the close up video stop? Only at the moment they claim him going overboard. That is the only one that is from a distance and shows only a bit of movement of a shadow. Why? Why is every part of the ship on clear video aside from the accident itself? These things lead me to believe that not only is there more to this story that is being kept from us, but that, as has happened many times in the past, there is an intentional cover-up going on.
I have a great many more thoughts on this particular topic and would be happy to answer any questions any of you might have. I am very grateful to NBC for running this story and helping to keep the public informed!

Again, thank you all for reading and for your support.

Eric Rappe’

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Community

Posted on May 1, 2013 by

I grew up in a small town called Silverton Oregon. Back in 91′ when Desert Storm began, I packed up all of my things (I was 17, the job was quick) and joined the military. Since then I have traveled around the country a great deal and lived all over the place. For some reason I always missed Silverton. I could not put my finger on why, until my mom and mother in law both got sick. At that time we lived in Olympia Washington. Eye contact was a scary thing in Olympia.
Very shortly (just a few weeks) after we moved back to Silverton my mom passed away. In Olympia nobody would have known, in Silverton I had strangers come to my door with cards and well wishes.
That was when I realized it. Community. People being good to people. That was what I was missing in every single place I lived other than this town. compassion, thoughtfulness, decent forms of humanity.
Now I am dealing with the loss of my brother. I am working to raise money for the International Cruise Victims Association. One of the things I decided to do was to see if I could find a couple of donations for a raffle. Silverton has once again come out in force. Silverton Bodyworks Clinic, Stone Creek Cafe, and Wooden Nickle Tavern have all donated gift cards. I have talked to several others who are also wanting to donate. Friends are donating as well. On friend has donated some hand-made crafts to sell, and another gave an outfit used in the movie Hot Tub Time Machine for the raffle. I am honored to live here, and so happy to be around people of this caliber! Thank you Silverton! I will never leave you agai

check in later for your chance to with this outfit!

check in later for your chance to win both of these shirts and the tie!

n…

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