Richard V. Rupp

September 6, 2022

I'm happily back to writing my weekly newsletter.

 

In my July 1st newsletter, I indicated that I would start back up tomorrow. Because of weekly scheduling commitments, I've decided to change the day of the week I will be sending Rupp's Notes/FBI Special Agent Hartmann Newsletter from Wednesday to Tuesday.

 

I'm easing back into a regular schedule and habits. I'm starting to be able to breathe for the first time in several weeks after helping Chuck, my 96-year-old brother, settle into a new apartment following the death of his wife of 51 years. This process required numerous trips to San Diego, where he lived, to help him square away affairs following the funeral.

 

My brother is now settled into an apartment at the Burbank Senior Artist Colony, where I live. My sons Matt and Brian and my grandson Ryan helped assemble IKEA furniture, hung pictures, and hooked up the T.V. in Chuck's new apartment. 

 

What an adventure it is to assist a 96-year-old who is computer illiterate (I suspect most at this age are) find a new place to live. He also needs a walker to get around. When we started the search, my building had no units available. I am not sure if the rest of the country is the same, but finding an apartment in the Burbank area is an unbelievable challenge. It's a bidding and timing war. I also discovered in this day and age, just about all of the applications for rental units must be completed online. Then there was the $30 fee (which I paid numerous times) that must accompany each application. What a scam. I suspect some of the applications I completed were just to get the fee. Yes, I can attest to the fact that the apartment rental market (at least in the L.A. Area) has gone crazy.

 

As I was driving around looking for an apartment for my brother, I noticed something else that was crazy. The way people are driving following the Covid pandemic lockdowns. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there has been a spike in reckless driving and traffic fatalities since the pandemic. Their records indicate that more Americans died in traffic accidents from January through March this year than in any first quarter since 2002. My experience suggests that the pandemic has created a breed of zombi drivers (or A.I.-driven vehicles) that live in their own or maybe a meta world. I stopped at one intersection, and the drivers of every car around me were on their cell phones.

 

Speaking of the pandemic, I noted a newspaper cartoon indicating " CDC " now stands for "Centers for Disease Confusion." That works for me and based on my conversations with the local small business owners I have spoken with recently, they also agree with this definition.

 

Now that I have gotten somewhat used to pandemic life, mother nature, aided by climate change, has created new problems to face. Here are the Burbank temperatures for the Labor Day Weekend – Friday, 101 degrees Fahrenheit;  Saturday, 105; Sunday, 108; Monday, 104; and today, estimated at 104. It is estimated that it will be in the 100s through Friday. Records abound. The significant increase in my electric bill attests to how hot it is. Then we were advised to cut back on water usage. This one has me really worried.

 

Richard Worzel, a Chartered Financial Analyst, states, "California is exceptional. We all know that. Unfortunately, California has become exceptional in a particularly unpleasant way: it's running out of water. According to NASA, California's current four-year drought is the worst in 1,200 years, and the state's reservoirs have only about a one-year supply of water left. . . .If the climate scientists are right, drought is the new normal, not only for California but for large parts of western North America. NASA's Ben Cook says there's a 12 percent chance California is at the beginning of a mega-drought. . ."

 

To make things worse for me and my FBI Special Agent Hartmann novels, the FBI has come under attack by a significant segment of our society. Stay posted for further comments on this in future newsletters.

 

Yes, I am glad to get back to working on the manuscript for my novel SKYWARD.

 

For those of you who have not read my novels, please check out DEATH & TAXES and DEATH ON THE HIGH SEAS at this site on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Richard-V-Rupp/e/B001KJ5XB6?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_4&qid=1662496968&sr=1-4

 

Looking forward to the icy gin and tonic this afternoon.

 

Cheers,

 

Richard V. Rupp, Author

Website – www.richardvrupp.com

Email – rupprisk@gmail.com

Copyright©2022 by Richard V. Rupp