Category Archives: Uncategorized

Elfin Women In Watford City, North Dakota

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As you may know, Elfin women are prettier than human women. I saw one on Wednesday, and two on Thursday of last week in Watford City. Both times I was going to Taco Johns to get something to eat.

I have been sick for three weeks now in Watford City, and I think that the ground that I am working on has something wrong with it, like it is cursed, or poisonous. It has aged me about three more years in the past three weeks. I don’t feel well at all, and I don’t have any energy, and I don’t feel like mating.

Just like if you are looking for bigfoot, you won’t see one, if you are looking for Elfin women, you won’t see one. It is only when you aren’t thinking about it at all, and it is the furthest thing from your mind that you will see one. This is how it was when I met Miss North Dakota, which I wrote about in a previous blog post. Also, they see you way before you see them, and they can hide before you ever see them, if they want to.

On Wednesday, I parked my truck in the parking lot of Taco Johns, locked my door, turned around, and there one was!, right in the passenger seat of the truck beside me, not two feet away! She looked exactly like the Elfin Princess Liv Tyler, long dark hair, pale white skin, bright eyes. She looked at me just like some tree frog on a branch, and didn’t try to get away. She was barefoot, and had her feet up on the dash, just like you would expect an Elfin woman to do, can’t sit in the front seat of a truck like a human woman.

Not knowing what to do, I went into Taco Johns, and ordered food to go. I thought about it for a few minutes, and still could not figure out what to do. It’s like trying to catch a snake, if you aren’t 100% sure what you are doing, you better just leave it alone. The truck she was in was much nicer than mine. It had a Canadian license plate. She was still there when I went to get in my truck, and she didn’t look at me, which hurt my feelings. But it was because her boyfriend was only a few steps from getting in her truck, and she didn’t want me trying to propose to her right then, and getting into a fight. Like I said, they see you way before you see them.

On Thursday, I went to Taco Johns, I still wasn’t feeling well. When I opened the door and walked in, there were two blonde Elfin girls sitting at a table with some not completely grown high school boys. It is not uncommon for Elfin girls and Elfin women to go places with not completely grown boys. This is because they are safe from the boys they are with, and they are safe from strangers.

The two Elfin girls saw me way before I saw them, and again they were bright eyed and looking at me like tree frogs, with a tree frog smile. After I ordered my food, I looked at them through the window in the partition wall. Like fish in an aquarium sometimes do, they looked back at me. After I got my food, I looked at them as I was leaving, I would have liked to have looked at them longer, but it would have upset the boys, not them.

An older man once told me, “When you have a beautiful woman, and you lose her, you feel bad about it, like you’re never going to find another one. But, you turn over another rock, and look!, there’s another one!”

How Businesses Treat People In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I want to write a brief, to-the-point post about how businesses in Dickinson treat people.  In addition to giving out-of-state people some information, I would like for the Dickinson Mafia to think about this.

The following businesses in Dickinson that I have dealt with have been fair:

Dan Porter Toyota, Charboneau Dodge, Parkway Ford, R&R Repair, have all been fair, their prices were only 10% to 15% higher than ordinary towns not in the oil field.  The personnel were reasonable.

Ace Hardware, Macs Hardware, and Runnings have a good selection of quality merchandise.  The prices are not high.  Mostly, the personnel were O.K.

Most of the stores in the Prairie Hills Mall have normal priced merchandise, the personnel are O.K.  The Prairie Hills Mall Cinema is O.K.  Herberger’s has nice clothes.

The West River Community Center is one of the nicest indoor recreation centers in the United States.  It is moderately priced.  In the summer, Patterson Lake is a nice large outdoor recreation area that is moderately priced.

There is a large selection of fast food restaurants that are not high priced, McDonalds, Burger King, Wendys, Arbys, Taco Bell, Subway, Dominos, and the King Buffet.  There are a few inexpensive restaurants with good food, like Don Pedros.

There are more than enough grocery stores now, three Family Fares, Cash Wise, Wal-Mart, and the Family Dollar.  These stores have normal prices.

Having just written the list above, it would seem like everything is O.K. in Dickinson.  Most of the things that people want or need, are readily available in Dickinson, at reasonable and fair prices.  Except for housing.

What I want to point out to the Dickinson Mafia, is that everyone, everyone who moved to Dickinson felt like they were being taken advantage of, and they were very angry and resentful about it.  I explained in several previous posts, that the property owners, property managers, and property investors, had cost increases of approximately 50% after 2007, but they increased the housing prices by 400%.

Even though most of the businesses in Dickinson had fair prices and were reasonable, everyone who moved to Dickinson felt like they were being taken advantage of.  If it would not have been for the property owners, property managers, and property investors, many of the people who moved to Dickinson for work would have thought that Dickinson was as good a place as any to stay, buy a home, and raise a family.  Instead, most of the out-of-state workers planned on staying here only so long as the oil field work lasted, because they felt like they were being taken advantage of.

Dickinson would have been better off if people thought of it as a place to settle down.  Many people made up their mind that they weren’t going to remain in Dickinson because the price of housing was just too high.  All of the oil field workers who left Dickinson will remember for the rest of their lives, how cold it was, and how they got ripped off.

Blood Bath At Watford City, North Dakota

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On February 10, 1930, five miles east of Watford City on what is now the Disenchanted Highway, 21 year old Charles Bannon murdered all six members of the Haven family. Charles Bannon was a hired man who lived on the Haven farm.

After the murder of husband Albert Haven, his wife Lulia, and their four children Daniel, Leland, Charles, and Mary, murderer Charles Bannon remained on the farm. He invited his father James Bannon to come and work the farm with him.

In the weeks following the murder, the post master complained that the Haven family had uncollected mail piling up. It was noticed that there were some past due bill notices in their mail. No one in the area had seen the Haven family since February 9th. The Sheriff went to the Haven farm, and found Charles Bannon living there. Charles Bannon told the Sherrif that the Haven family had moved to Oregon, and that he was renting the farm.

In the Fall of 1930, when Charles Bannon began selling the Haven livestock and grain, the residents of the area became upset, and the Sheriff  arrested Charles Bannon for larceny. Charles Bannon was taken to jail in Williston, where his mother and his attorney urged him to tell the truth. His first confession was a lie that was not well thought out, he told the location of all the family members’ bodies, but said it was the wife who murdered the family, she paid him to hide the bodies and left. Her body was found also. Finally, Charles Bannon said that he had accidentally shot the eldest son Daniel, and when the family turned on him, he got scared and had to kill them too.

Charles Bannon and his father James Bannon were placed in the McKenzie County jail, only one mile from the Haven farm where the murders had taken place, to await trial. In January of 1931, a well organized mob of 75 men wearing hoods, arrived at the jail. They took the Sheriff  into custody, they cut the phone line, they used a large timber to break into the jail, took the deputy into custody, then broke down the jail cell door. The mob took Charles Bannon out of jail, demanded that he confess the truth, tried to hang him at the Haven farm but were denied access, so the mob hung Charles Bannon from the Cherry Creek Bridge.

Following the lynching, the Governor of North Dakota was very angry about it, and he sent several government officials to McKenzie County to investigate. The North Dakota Council of Churches also investigated. No one would cooperate or identify any of the mob participants. No one has ever been identified, and no one has ever confessed. A state’s attorney living in McKenzie County who later wrote a book about the incident, said that he believed that everyone at the time believed the right thing had been done. Charles Bannon had murdered a woman and young children at the Haven farm. At a previous farm where Charles Bannon had worked as a hired man, that family’s young girls were found dead in their burned down house after the mother and father returned home from going to the movies.

Problem Women Moving To Dickinson, North Dakota

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In many previous posts, I wrote that there had been a shortage of women in Dickinson, and a lack of attractive women in Dickinson. I also wrote that the women in Dickinson had all decided that they were going to be overweight, not in shape, that they were not going to wear nice clothes, get their hair done, get their nails done, or act friendly, because they did not want men bothering them or wanting to have sex with them. I was writing about the women from Dickinson. The women from Dickinson don’t want any kind of attention.

One year ago, I was working as a subcontractor in Dickinson, at a large business that employed many women. After a couple of weeks of working there, I asked this one woman who was older than me, who I had to exchange work information with hourly, why her coworker was so short with me. She said, “Don’t you dare tell her that I said this, she is just nutty and crazy, she told me that she sold her house and moved here to Dickinson, to try to find a guy working in the oil field to get hooked up with. She had heard there were so many single guys in Dickinson. But as you can see, she ain’t very good looking, and she’s a crazy bitch, so it hasn’t worked out for her, and now she’s just an angry person.”

I recall those words now, because I recently encountered an angry young woman working in the restaurant where I often eat. I have been going to this restaurant since 2011. I know the owner, and about 10 out of the 13 people who currently work at this restaurant, plus many of the former employees. I talk to the waitresses some, I know where they are from, and a little about what is going on with them in their lives. I don’t make fun of them, and I don’t say anything lewd or crude to them. Some of the waitresses talk a lot, some don’t. Some of the waitresses talk a lot about their personal life, some don’t. Some want to be friends, some don’t. However, I have in the past met women who have recently moved to Dickinson, who begin working at this restaurant, who have blackness and darkness in their background, demons, and it is only a short amount of time before they start acting evil.

About four months ago, there was a pretty, petite young woman about 25 years of age, who came to work at this restaurant. She is unmarried, and has a young daughter. At first, she seemed to be making friends with some of the staff and some of the customers. She dated one of the customers briefly after she started working at the restaurant, I don’t know why, he looks just like the Devil. Currently, another customer is asking her out, he is an O.K. person, but he is not handsome. More and more over the past weeks, her countenance has grown angrier and angrier, she acts angry, she says that she is angry, and that she hates her job. As of several days ago, she is not speaking to me, and she acts like she is mad at me, like I have done something to her.

This makes me very uncomfortable, because she acts like I have done something to her. It makes me very uncomfortable, because I have seen this play out before. I have seen women that are so full of anger and hate, that they try attack someone around them, usually a male, but because they are small, they attack some man using a scheme or false allegations. I know a little about this young woman’s background, it appears that she got into some trouble and a bad lifestyle in Wyoming, her family had some relatives that had come to work in Dickinson, so they thought this would be a good place for her, they thought she would meet some guy working in the oil field. The problem is, it didn’t take long for her to start acting crazy here too.

I can think of about eight additional women that I have met, that have traveled from several states away to be a bartender or waitress in Dickinson, and they hate their job, they hate their customers, they dislike their coworkers, they hate being here, and they hate their life. You might think that it would have been easier for them to stay where they were, but no, it wouldn’t be, because they were unable to keep or get a job where they were because they had a bad attitude and acted crazy.

I have met women working in other industries in Dickinson and Watford City, that have traveled from several states away, that act like they have got something mentally and emotionally wrong with them. Just like the older men who never learned a skill or trade, or never did any work competently, drove across the country thinking they were going to get a $100,000 per year job, crazy women came out here thinking they wouldn’t be crazy anymore or people wouldn’t notice.

The Sons Of Dickinson, North Dakota

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I do not dislike the Sons of Dickinson. In this blog post I am not going to make fun of them. I am merely going to describe them and point out who they are.

The Sons of Dickinson are the boys who were born between 1970 to 1990. Between these years, these boys’ childhood experiences were not completely shaped by either the second oil boom or the third oil boom.

At the end of the second oil boom in Dickinson in 1983, economic conditions in Dickinson were poor and most of the people were poor, just like they had been for most of Dickinson’s history. The boys who grew up in Dickinson during this time were not spoiled, their families did not have a lot, and their families were not arrogant. In school, kids did not have expensive clothes, and the girls were not wearing yoga pants or short shorts. Though the families were poor, the children had a “normal” growing up. Material possessions, having things, and making a lot of money were not the primary focus of the families.

The Sons of Dickinson range in age now from 26 to 46 years old. They are characterized by being nonaggressive, nonjudgmental, nonargumentative, quiet, and mild mannered. They hold ordinary jobs in Dickinson, which they perform dutifully and without complaining. One of the “giveaways” or “tells” that they are a Son of Dickinson, is that many of them have a nice newer $40,000 truck that would typically be beyond the reach of someone with an ordinary job.

Though the Sons of Dickinson grew up poor, with mothers and fathers who both had to work to provide for their families, once 2007 rolled around, and the third oil boom in Dickinson occurred, many of these working class families benefitted. Through owning a small business, being an experienced trades person, owning a little bit of property, or owning a farm with an oil well on it or next to it, many working class families in Dickinson benefitted. The Sons of Dickinson were not business owners, entrepreneurs, or land owners, they were nonaggressive, mild mannered people, who were employed in ordinary jobs. It was their parents who owned a small business, practiced a skilled trade, owned a little bit of family property, or owned a family farm with an oil well on it or next to it.

This is why you will see and meet in Dickinson, men between the ages of 26 to 46 years old that are very mild mannered, nonaggressive, who work at a low paying job, yet drive a $40,000 truck. They are nice, you won’t dislike them, you will just be unable to figure out how they do it:

A one bedroom apartment in Dickinson is $1,500 per month, plus $200 per month utilities, that’s $20,000 per year on housing.

If you are working in Dickinson, it is easy to spend $20 per day on food, and $50 per week on gas, that’s $9,000 per year on food and gas.

Whether it’s medical, dental, car insurance, new car tires, new laptop computer, or traveling somewhere, you spend another $2,000.

So, before taxes you need to make close to $40,000 per year in Dickinson, even if you are not married.

Given the above cost of living, how can someone in Dickinson who makes less than $40,000 per year, afford an extra $8,000 per year on truck payments?

The answer is, Mom and Dad. In some cases, 26 to 46 year old males in Dickinson still live at home with Mom and Dad. This is not unusual in Dickinson. You have got to remember that there is a shortage of women in Dickinson, and a lack of attractive women, many men in Dickinson never have a girlfriend or a wife, so they just continue living at home. A second scenario is that a Son of Dickinson lives in a home or trailer owned by Mom and Dad, or another family member, and their rent is free or at a reduced rate. The third scenario is that there is oil revenue money, or property revenue money coming to Mom and Dad, and they disperse some of this money to their adult children.

I have lived in Dickinson for 3-1/2 years now, and I have seen all three of the scenarios above. It does not bother me, because most of the Sons of Dickinson are not arrogant, pushy, or aggressive, they just work at their job, they don’t complain, in fact they are even friendly in a reserved way. I do not see anything wrong with Mom and Dad helping out their adult sons, when their sons are not jerks or troublemakers.

The Death Of Eric Haider, Dickinson, North Dakota

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The following is a serious, ongoing story, that is not over.

A brief history:

On May 24, 2012, thirty year old Eric Haider went missing from a construction site in Dickinson, North Dakota.  That evening, when Eric did not return home, his fiancee and his mother began trying to contact everyone they could think of, to try to locate Eric.  They filed a missing person report with the police.

After several days, the police and an excavator operator, attempted to dig up the recently backfilled trench on the construction site where Eric had been working.  A water line was hit during the dig, and that ended the digging operation.

Eric remained missing for the remainder of 2012, 2013, 2014.  In early 2015, the parents of Eric Haider hired a private investigator, Discovery Investigations, to search for Eric.  In May of 2015, Discovery Investigations found the body of Eric Haider, buried in the trench on the construction site where he had been working.

The forensic investigators said that the body of Eric Haider was found, crouching in an upright position, beside the water line his work crew had been installing.  The coroner determined that Eric was alive when he was buried.

The Dickinson police detective, and the state attorney, said that Eric’s death was an accident, no criminal charges would be pursued, and that the case was closed.

Eric’s parents were upset that the initial search for Eric did not find him, it was a private investigator that they hired several years later that found his body, buried right where he had been working.  Eric’s parents were upset that the police investigation did not determine how Eric was buried alive, and that the case was closed.

Eric’s parents, family, and friends have expressed frustration that the police investigation did not continue, and that the case was closed.  Looking back at what happened following the disappearance of Eric, many things indicated that it was not an accidental death.  One of the the most disturbing things, was that Eric’s coworkers left the job site that day, not knowing where Eric was, or having made much of an effort to find him, despite the fact that he rode with them to work that morning, and Eric had left some clothing and his lunch box in their vehicle.

The following is why I believe Eric’s death was not an accident:

I have worked in excavation and underground utilities as a foreman, superintendent, project manager, and inspector.

  1. When we started work in the morning, or when we returned from lunch, we always looked in the trench before backfill.  We did not want any bucket, lunch box, shovel, shopping cart, debris, or kid to be down in the trench when we backfilled.  Everybody always looked in the trench, it was instinctive, it was habitual.
  2. An operator on a piece of equipment can see in the trench.  If he has a low loader bucket, he can see over it.  If he has a high loader bucket, he can see under it.  The operator can see what he is filling in, and how much fill is going where.
  3. Especially when filling a trench with a water line, you don’t just fill the trench completely full.  You put in a couple feet of dirt, have the laborers shovel the dirt under and around the pipe, then you run a compactor/tamper to compact the fill.  If you are doing a sloppy job, you might fill the trench 3′ full, then have the laborers shovel the dirt out, then run a compactor/tamper over it.  But there are laborers standing by, shoveling the dirt out, running a compactor, and they would have seen a body crouching upright beside the water line.
  4. Whether it’s a three man crew, or a ten man crew, when someone is not present for even twenty minutes, everybody notices, and people start to gripe that somebody is supposed to be there doing their job, and they’re not there.  It only takes about twenty minutes before workers try to find out why somebody isn’t where they should be.  Within about one hour, everybody would have been pissed off and upset that they could not find a coworker that was supposed to be there.
  5. When a worker rides to work with other workers, they just don’t leave the work site at the end of the day without him.  The workers want to know what happened to him, where is he, did he leave with somebody else, did he get sick, who was the last person who saw him, go and look everywhere and see if anybody can find him, does anybody know what happened to him?

The fact that all of Eric’s coworkers just got in their vehicles and left the job site without Eric, without knowing what happened to him, without knowing where he went, does not make any sense.  It also does not make much sense that a water line could be backfilled with Eric crouching upright beside it, without any laborers or the equipment operator seeing him.

I don’t know why the police and the state attorney are not aware of the five issues that I just wrote up above.  I think that it would have been appropriate for the entire crew to have been charged with manslaughter, their actions resulted in the death of Eric Haider.  I think that it was more than manslaughter, the manslaughter charge against the entire crew I think would have brought about confessions of knowledge about what really happened that day.

 

As of September 2016, this post has been viewed by 48,000 people, from about thirty different countries.  So many people are sorry about what happened to Eric Haider, and angry that almost nothing has been done about it.

I had believed that Greta Van Susteren with Fox News would have been willing to investigate what happened, just like she did in the case of Natalie Holloway who disappeared in Aruba.  I gave out the contact information for Greta Van Susteren, and urged readers to call her, and e-mail her.  No response.

Greta did not want to investigate, OSHA did not want to investigate, not anybody wanted to investigate.  My personal belief now, is that people don’t get very upset or concerned about workers getting killed in North Dakota.  This should change.  Every worker death in North Dakota should be a big deal, be thoroughly and completely investigated, the specific causes determined.  Declaring an “accident” is not a determination of what happened, who did what, and who is responsible.

Economy in Dickinson, March 2016

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I will try to give a brief look at the Economy in Dickinson, in March 2016, using people that I know as examples.

I was making very little money working two jobs in Dickinson this winter, so I got a third job working in Watford City.  I was very lucky to get this job, jobs are scarce.

A friend of mine in Dickinson that I have known for two years, this winter was the poorest and most financially desperate he has been in the past eight years.  I got him a job working with me in Watford City.  He was very lucky to get this job, jobs are scarce.

A friend of mine in Dickinson that I have known since 2011, who has a CDL and does construction work, he became completely broke and had to return to Wyoming in November of 2015.  He could not get another job in Dickinson.

A college educated friend of mine who has lived in Dickinson since 2008, he left Dickinson in December of 2015, due to lack of professional work prospects.

An electrician who I have known in Dickinson since 2013, he had been doing well financially in 2014 and 2015, now he is very nearly broke.  Not a lot of work prospects for him.

At the Church that I was going to, there are three truck drivers, each with a wife and kids.  One truck driver had lost his job in October and has not been able to get another one.  A second truck driver has been expecting to lose his job any day now for the past two months, the company he is working for is going out of business.  About 5% of the Church members have left the state since October due to lack of work.

A friend of mine who I have known since 2011, co-founded a trucking company in Dickinson in 2012.  His trucking company went out of business by the end of 2014.  He has been broke since the Spring of 2015.

To date, the only oil field worker that I have ever met, that I know now, who is not broke or nearly broke, is a wireline operator whose wife is a nurse.  He and his wife own moderate vehicles, and they live in an older townhouse.  He has been out of work for nine months, but his wife is still employed as a nurse.

Being Sick In Watford City, North Dakota

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I have been sick for the past two weeks, and I have been especially miserable because I have been working in Watford City.  I didn’t care if I died, it seemed to me like I was already dead, this place is so strange, I must be dead already and I don’t really understand that I’m dead yet.

But just in case I wasn’t dead, I was trying not to get a speeding ticket each time the police tail gated me on the Disenchanted Highway.  If they had pulled me over, I just would have laughed and laughed, you are going to get sick now, sick like me, sick for two weeks, you’ll see, you’ll see what it’s like to be dead.

If it would not have been for the CENEX Gas Station, I would have died.  It was easy to drive up to the gas pump, walk inside and buy some Dayquil and several bottles of Gatorade without being assaulted or raped by the oil field workers, or eaten by the local people, I don’t think they allow that on the CENEX property.  The Cash Wise grocery store parking lot is a different matter, and I didn’t feel like I was strong enough to shop at Cash Wise without something happening to me.

It gives me even more of a headache to look at all the freaky people in Watford City.  I have already written about the White Trash in Watford City, the poor white people from the South that have magically come to work in Watford City, because nobody else will.  I haven’t talked about the weird freaky people in Watford City, the kind of people that make you not want to get out of your car at the gas station or the grocery store parking lot, and say to yourself, “No, I don’t need food that bad, I’ll just go home.”

I think that the weird freaky people in Watford City are a hybrid breed.  I think that some are a cross between Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder father and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome mother.  I think that these hybrids have also bred back with the White Trash.  In any case, they are not very tall, they have pale skin, they have tattoos and piercings, and both the males and the females have effeminate physique with wide hips and fat ass.  They are not indigenous to Watford City, they moved here because of the oil boom.  They can’t do really heavy labor, but they get hired to do jobs that require a lot of driving or working at a cash register.  To say that they are Transgender, does not really even cover it, and I don’t want to.  Go read about determining the sex of Parrots if you want to, then you’ll know what I’m talking about.

In the midst of my sickness, I got a new neighbor.  She is not bad looking, but she is weird, one of the weird freaky people.  She’s a lesbian.  I don’t know why, but Watford City can’t seem to get enough weird freaky people.  Fifty years ago, these people would have gotten arrested, or run out of town in North Dakota for their deviant freaky behavior, but now Watford City can’t get enough of them.

Monique

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Several years ago, I went to work in an oil field in Southwest Texas. It was right on the border with Mexico. In the towns where I lived and worked, the population was about 85% Hispanic, and they did not like white people.

Like all oil field towns, there was a shortage of women. In all of the bars, restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, there were very, very few attractive women. There was one bar restaurant in the town where I lived, that both whites and Hispanics went to, the food was very good. The waitresses at this restaurant were not very pretty. However, the hostess, Monique, was very attractive.

To describe Monique, imagine a personable and charming housewife, about 5′-4″, long dark hair, her complexion being slightly tan, and everything else I will just describe as perfectly proportioned female features. I described her as a housewife, because she was calm and confident, like she didn’t really need anything. But Monique was only 15.

One day, Monique came and sat beside me at the bar. She was on the telephone with her mother, insisting that she was at work, and not someplace else. I so wanted to say, “Monique, come back to bed.”, knowing that her mom would hear me, and get upset. Monique would not have cared.

Patrick, the bartender, who was Spanish, as was Monique, not Mexican Indian, said that he was glad that I didn’t say that. He said that he knew Monique’s mom and dad, and they were very strict parents. Patrick said that he had had to warn other men away from Monique, she was only 15, she had lied about her age to get the job.

I asked Patrick what would happen to me if I dated Monique. Patrick said, “That’s a tough one. It depends. It depends on whether you are always wanting to date young girls, or just this one. If it’s just this one, it may be O.K.”

A few weeks later, at this same bar restaurant, there was an attractive lady of about 30 years of age, that came and sat at the bar with her date. I leaned forward to look at her on the other side of her date. I said to her, “You look like the young lady who used to work here, are you her sister?”. I was interested in this woman, everything was right about her. Patrick, the bartender was standing behind her waving his arms in an “X”, mouthing No, No, No, trying to get me to stop. This woman leaned forward to look past her date at me, with keen interest, then I leaned way back to see her better, then she leaned way back to see me better, her date was in the way. She said, “Who are you talking about?”. I said, ” She was very pretty, her name was Monique”. She said, “That is my daughter.”

Patrick looked like he thought all hell was going to break loose, and Monique’s mom was going to claw me to death. The opposite happened. Her mom told me where she worked and to go by and see her. About a week later, I did go to the grocery store where Monique worked. I didn’t see Monique, Monique saw me, and she came up to me and said that her mom had told her that she had met me, and that she was glad to see me. I visited with Monique briefly, not wanting to get her in trouble at work.

I had a lot to think about. Monique was very beautiful, she was physically perfect. Judging from how beautiful and in-shape her mother looked, Monique would never lose her looks either. Monique’s personality was sweet and direct. She did not appear to have any anger, hatred, or other dark thing lurking under the surface. She liked me. There was nothing to not like about Monique.

This place that I was in, it might as well have been a Third World Country. The people in the town knew that I was an engineer working for the oil company. There were things that made me look successful. Where housing was expensive and scarce, a three bedroom house had been rented for me to live in by myself. I believed that separately, Monique and her mom, had both concluded it would be O.K. for me to date Monique if I was going to take care of her. Get married and stay here, or take her with me.

I thought about it. I had a home and property in Idaho that I was not ready to get rid of. Bringing Monique to Idaho would have been very mean and cruel. In Idaho most of the people are Mormons. The Mormons suppress and repress women, the Mormon women buy into their mistreatment, and even help mistreat other women. I wouldn’t bring Monique to Idaho.

If I was married to Monique, I would help her find out what she wanted to do in life herself. Maybe she would want to go to school to be a nurse. Whatever she went to school for, whether in school or after she got out and started working, it would be normal for her to come across somebody her own age that she would rather be with.

I did not think that I could offer Monique a good enough life. It would be painful to see her get tired of me, to watch her become more and more unhappy being with me. I couldn’t see it tuning out differently.

Bigfoot Near Watford City, North Dakota

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In any internet browser, type in “Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization”.  At the top or near the top of your search results should be the website.  Click on the the website.  You can look at their other stuff later, but for now, click on the section titled “Sightings By Region”.  Once that page comes up, you will see a list of all the counties in North Dakota.  You will see that there are Bigfoot sighting reports for McKenzie, McClean, Mountrail, and Ward counties.  These counties are all adjacent to each other.

Go ahead and read the Bigfoot sighting reports for each of these four counties.  Altogether, there were many children and many adults who witnessed the Bigfoots in these counties.  In some instances, the Bigfoots were sighted, day after day, by different witnesses.  Some witnesses were children playing in their yard, people in their homes, people driving down Highway 22. Some of the witnesses observed the Bigfoots for several minutes.  Many tracks were followed.

One of the field researchers for the “BFRO”, was a Vietnam Veteran, USAF pilot, and United Airlines pilot, he interviewed many witnesses for his report.  One of the other field researchers for the BFRO, who completed an entirely different investigation, said that he had more witnesses than he could interview in one day.  The different BFRO investigators concluded from all of the witnesses and evidence that there were quite a few Bigfoots that had been living in the area going back for many years.

Now, just because you don’t see any attractive women in Watford City, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.  In Dickinson, you can look for them on Facebook and find out where they work, but I have noticed in Watford City, the attractive women don’t put their photograph on Facebook.  I have seen one though, no actually I know where you can find three of them, but I’m not going to tell everybody because they will just bother them and scare them away.  Oh, what the hell, I don’t care, they work at the hotels.

Why I Keep Writing About Dickinson, North Dakota, Part III

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In the states affected by hurricanes, there are laws against price gouging by businesses on supplies when a hurricane is approaching.  Businesses can not double the price of plywood and gasoline, among other things.  There are criminal charges, fines, and publicity in every newspaper about who took advantage of people.

North Dakota has just gone through its third oil boom.  The first one was in the 1950s, the second one was in the late 1970s, and the most recent one started in about 2007.  Note that each of these oil booms lasted about 7 years, and that each of these oil booms were about 30 years apart.  From everything that happened, I wish that the North Dakota State Legislature would enact “The North Dakota Boom Rush Law”.

“The State of North Dakota hereby enacts The North Dakota Boom Rush Law,  whereby the Governor acting alone, or by vote of 2/3 of the State Legislature, a condition of a Boom or Rush is officially recognized as occurring somewhere in the state, and the following protections are taken:

No business, or individual, may increase the price of necessities to more than double what the price was during the year prior to the declaration of the Boom or Rush condition.  Necessities include food, fuel, housing, hotel, transportation, vehicle repair, vehicle towing and recovery.  To do so is a crime, punishable by up to one year in jail, and $5,000 fine.

Further, it shall be unlawful for any business, individual, or government entity to interfere, impede, or delay the construction of housing, for the purpose of creating or causing a scarcity of housing, or for creating or causing high housing prices.  To do so is a crime, punishable by up to one year in jail, and $5,000 fine.

Additionally, the State of North Dakota shall be responsible for actively contacting all national news services with accurate truthful information regarding the Boom or Rush condition, and taking an active role in not allowing misrepresentations in work, working conditions, and rates of pay.

The purpose of this legislation it to prevent the hardship and suffering of both the residents in the affected areas, and the migrating workers.”

I thought that just about covers it.  Then I realized that neither the Governor nor the Legislators would allow this legislation.  The truth is, they are probably greedy also, or they are accountable to a bunch of greedy business people back home.  The real estate agents, property managers, and property investors would scream, “Are you crazy!”

Where did I ever get these ideas about treating people fairly, treating people like you would want to be treated, not taking advantage of people, not harming people, helping people?  There has got to be something wrong with me.

 

Why I Keep Writing About Dickinson, North Dakota, Part II

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I believe in the necessity of Child Labor Laws, Minimum Wage Laws, Workers Compensation Laws, Occupational Safety and Health Laws.  They came about because workers were mistreated.

Some of you business people would probably like to express your opinion that there should be free markets, let the market place decide, we don’t need any regulations on business.  I would like to have you spend several weeks scrubbing out the inside of rail road tanker cars.  You don’t need to know what was in them.  You don’t need to see any MSDS sheets.  You don’t need a respirator.  You don’t need positive ventilation.  You just need to shut up, and do your job scrubbing out these tanker cars.

I believe that workers arriving in Western North Dakota should have had some protection.  Prior to 2007 in Dickinson, a one bedroom apartment rented for approximately $400 per month.  By 2011, a one bedroom apartment rented for approximately $1,500 per month.  Prior to 2007 in Dickinson, a three bedroom house rented for approximately $700 per month.  By 2011, a three bedroom house rented for approximately $3,000 per month.  The price of rent quadrupled from 2007 to 2011.

Real estate agents, property managers, and property investors liked to say, “We have no choice, our prices have gone up and up.”  No, your prices went up by %50 at the most.  If a property investor purchased a three bedroom home in Dickinson in 2001 for $40,000, their mortgage payment, property tax, and insurance was probably less than $350 per month.  The mortgage payment is fixed, the insurance may have increased slightly, and the property tax may have gone up as much as %100 by 2011.  So by 2011, the monthly payments might now be $525 per month, it went up %50.  Why were you trying to charge $3,000 per month for rent?  It is because you are greedy, you were trying to take advantage of people, and you thought that you could get away with it.

Like I said before, if investors could have figured out a way to buy up all of the food before anyone else could get any, they would sell it back to you at quadruple the price.  Not being able to buy up all the food, or have children work at factory labor, the real estate agents, property managers, and property investors in Dickinson had to stick to real estate.  So all they could do was just make sure that there was a scarcity of housing available, which they did.

Why I Keep Writing About Dickinson, North Dakota, Part I

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Why do I keep writing about Dickinson, North Dakota?  I started writing about Dickinson partly because of how I felt.  I felt angry and frustrated.

One of the things that I was angry and frustrated about, was news stories on ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News about how all these workers were moving to North Dakota and making over $100,000 per year.  This was not the case.  Yes, working directly on an oil drilling rig, you can make that much, by working 12 hour shifts, 14 days straight, then 7 days off.  Keep in mind, it is also going to be below 0 degrees Fahrenheit for those 14 days straight.  American males between 18 years and 28 years old, I believe that less than 10% are physically and mentally strong enough to do this.  At one drilling company that I went to, there was a one-way glass window overlooking the reception area, the managers could tell with a quick glance which applications to not even consider.

What the drilling companies were looking for, was a male between 18 years and 28 years old, that looked like they did not have any physical defect, no signs of physical weakness, that looked like they were accustomed to labor.  Probably their favorite candidates were young men that grew up on a farm and had to work.  Their second favorite candidates were probably former high school football players that were linemen.

I don’t think the drilling companies wanted to hire anyone over 32 years old to work on a drill rig if they hadn’t worked on a drill rig before.  Those 12 hour shifts, for 14 days straight: any foot problem, ankle problem, knee problem, hip problem, back problem, elbow problem, shoulder problem, in muscle, joint, or tendon, would appear and just become worse and worse, hour by hour, worse and worse every day.  It was just a safer business practice to try to get people 18 years to 28 years old with no physical defects.

In Dickinson, probably more than half of the out-of-state workers that showed up looking for work were over 30 years old.  They all had the expectation that they were going to get a $23 to $30 per hour job, working 60 to 80 hours per week.  This is what they had heard.  The reality was, that at their age, not being able to work on a drill rig, the jobs available to them paid probably $14 to $23 per hour.

The other thing that the out-of-state workers that showed up in Dickinson did not understand, was that if you were an idiot where you came from, you were still going to be an idiot when you arrived in Dickinson.  If you hadn’t ever been able to do any type of work competently, you were not going to be able to obtain or keep a job in Dickinson either.

There should have been a great big American Red Cross tent in the Wal-Mart parking lot for all of the dazed out-of-state workers who suddenly found that there weren’t any $100,000 per year jobs.

Many, many people had heard false information about work in the oil field in North Dakota and traveled across the United States to get here.  They did not know or understand what it would be like in North Dakota.  It would have been better for everyone involved if more accurate, truthful information would have been provided to all the national networks, stations, news services, and publications.  Better for everyone if it had been done, except for the real estate agents, property managers, and property investors.

Armadillos Carry Leprosy!

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I was very, very upset to learn recently, that armadillos carry leprosy.  I thought, you have got to be kidding me, nothing can be more fucked up than this.

Armadillos are one foot long, opossum-like animals that have armor over their bodies.  They live in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.  They don’t bother anybody or anything.  They come out at night and dig around.  They can’t see very well.  They sometimes don’t pay attention to people, other times they run away.  One time I went over and touched one when it was digging, and so did my cat.  My cat didn’t know what to think, it was smaller than my cat, but it could not have cared less that my cat was touching it, it made my cat wary of it.

It turns out, that there are about nine cases of leprosy each year in Florida contracted through people handling armadillos.  In my town growing up, it would have been normal for any kid to have a baby alligator, baby owl, squirrel, raccoon, turtle, rabbit, opossum, or armadillo.  Many families liked animals, they weren’t scared of animals, and they didn’t want their kids to be scared of animals either.

You would have thought that everybody in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas would have known that armadillos carry leprosy.  I can’t believe that not once did I ever hear that mentioned in school, ever see it on TV, or see it in the newspaper.

At least I can let all the poor workers from the South living in Watford City know, because most of the people in Watford City read my blog each week.

Watching Mexican Work Crews In North Dakota

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In a recent blog post, I wrote that I was sorry to see Mexican work crews in the oil fields in North Dakota. I didn’t want to see English speaking workers displaced by cheaper Mexican labor. I didn’t want to see the wage rate go down in the oil fields either. After watching three Mexican work crews recently, I changed my mind.

I have worked construction in Florida, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, and North Dakota. One of the biggest problems that I had in construction, was the dirt bag construction workers, the White Trash. Most of the construction workers acted like pirates, trying to do everything except doing the work right, and still wanting to get paid. There were some that took pride in their work, these became foremen and superintendents, but I have seen bad foremen too. In general, it seemed like construction workers felt like they were being wronged, and they weren’t going to give you their best work, especially if they thought you wouldn’t know or find out. Also, it seemed like a rush to get the work done in order to go to the bar, get drunk, get some meth, get some crack cocaine.

These three Mexican work crews that I have been watching are very good. The biggest thing is that they all get along with each other and they work together. The second biggest thing is that they shut up and work. There are about nine of them, and they all work together like bees or ants. They all stay busy at tasks, nobody has to get on anybody, they just work steady and focused. As a sign of how well they work, they all have nicer vehicles than me. It appears that they have a lot of money, because they earn a lot of money getting work done.

Not all Mexicans are like this, but I would give these guys all the work I had if I was an oil company. They are a pleasure to be around. I think that I have learned an important lesson from watching them: shut up, complete the work, and stay out of trouble. Hope I can do it.

Living A Life That You Don’t Want In North Dakota

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At the apartment where I live in Watford City, I have gotten to know some of my neighbors. In the parking lot, the license plates read: Florida, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming,Texas. I know that these people don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be here.

I am in my late 40s now, and in Watford City, I often say to myself, “Where has my life gone?”. I am not senile yet, I know how I got here. It all started with me wanting to try to live a happier and better life. I had graduated from a university with a degree in engineering. I had lived in a large city and worked my way up, earning more and more money.  I had saved up enough money to not have to work for three years, I hated the city, and I wanted to move.

I did not want to live in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, or Mississippi, because I thought of those states as being “ignorant and backwards”. Every one of those states looks like paradise to me right now. I messed up, I messed up. There was no one telling me and explaining to me that that is my culture, that is where you belong, you won’t fit in or be happy anyplace else. Most of this blog consists of me trying to figure out why the people in North Dakota are so unfriendly, inhospitable, unhelpful, uncooperative, and why the women try to look and act unattractive. Rather than me having to explain it in blog post after blog post, somebody from the South my age would just say, “Well, yeah.”, meaning, you’re not telling us anything we didn’t already know.

When I moved, I moved out West. Some small towns in Colorado were O.K., but there was no place to work. Colorado Springs was too much like the Rat Race that I had left. I lived in some small towns in Arizona, enjoyed them very much, but few places to work. Did not like Phoenix. Lived a few places in Idaho, was ready to settle down, and did. The Mormons in Idaho have a preference for Mormons, and they made it seem to me like I had made a mistake in moving there. I wished that I would have tried living in Montana and Wyoming.

Looking back at my life, it wasn’t a mistake for me to ty to live out West. It seems that I spent too much time in Idaho, when I wonder where the years went, they’re there, wasted amongst the Mormons. The bad economy in Idaho, caused me to go to work in North Dakota. For the past four years, whether in Dickinson, Utah, Texas, or Watford City, it has been small oil field towns where it is hard to find a place to stay or a place to eat. I can’t believe my life has turned out like this.

It is kind of like finding yourself in prison. You do things during the day. You go to eat. You read the newspaper. You watch TV. You read your mail. You exercise. You take a shower. But you’re not going anywhere, you’re not getting out. The people around you are mostly a reminder of your confinement. In Watford City, like prison, you can only dream about the life you once had: Waking up to a warm clear sky, looking out at harbor full of boats, people of different nationalities chattering while walking to the store, red and yellow hibiscus flowers, fig trees, sea grapes, palms, walking to a white sand beach, dogs playing, everyone smiling, everyone happy…. Here in Watford City, the best thing you have is the CENEX Gas Station: Waking up to the sound of trucks idling, the smell of diesel in the air, dirty oil field workers in a hurry to get to a location in order to smash their hand…

Somebody, please go ahead write the comment, “Well if you don’t like it, you can leave!”

Note To Farmers In Dickinson About Getting Raped

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I hereby grant permission to the Chamber of Commerce in Dickinson, to reprint the following information contained in “Note To Farmers In Dickinson About Getting Raped”.

Farmers in Dickinson:  You are no more likely to get raped by having given permission for someone to park trucks and trailers on your property, than if you had not given permission.  Let’s look at the facts.

There are many people in Dickinson who live in apartments, and perhaps twenty people pass within ten feet of their front door each day. Twenty People!, Ten Feet!, that sounds like pretty slim odds, but the apartment dwellers are not raped.  Let’s take another look.

In Dickinson, there are people who live on City blocks.  At the opposite corner of the block, people park and get in and out of their cars, day and night.  Day and Night!, Day and Night!, yes day and night.  And they don’t rape people.

Consider this, if your house is 200 feet from a public road, there are probably people that you don’t know, who drive down that road every day.  If you grant permission for someone to park their truck or trailer 500 feet from your house, they are no more likely to rape you than the people who drive 200 feet from your house every day on the public  road.

The fact that you give someone permission to park a truck or trailer on your property does not increase your chances of being raped.  People that want to rape you, will try to rape you whether they have permission to be on your property or not.

As a farmer, you are much more likely to be raped coming out of a bar in Watford City, than you are on your own farm.  Here are a few tips:  Don’t wear tight jeans.  Don’t let people buy you drinks and get you drunk at the bar.  Always check you tractor cab before you get in.

Also coming soon for farmers in Dickinson, “The Do’s and Don’ts of Animal Husbandry”, and “Don’t Stick Your Finger In That Socket!”

Is Dickinson A Good Place To Live?

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Is Dickinson a good place to live?  Almost, Dickinson is almost a good place to live.

Dickinson is a town that has most of the things that people want and need.  It is easy to drive around town, the town is not ugly, it is not overdeveloped, it is not underdeveloped, it is surrounded by thousands of acres of attractive farm land, and there is not a lot of crime.

Dickinson has a new $75 million hospital, with ER, critical care unit, maternity unit, surgery unit, and outpatient treatment offices.  Medical helicopter stationed 100 feet from ER.  Very large approx. $15 million Sanford Health facility across the street from hospital.

Dickinson has a nice commercial airport.  A fifty passenger jet will take you to Denver or Minneapolis, to take a larger plane to anywhere you want.  It is a very safe airport, not a lot of air traffic, nothing for planes to hit, no big problem landing too short or too long, maybe hit a wire fence and a cow.

For shopping, the Prairie Hills Mall is O.K., Menards, Runnings, and WalMart.  Hardware stores Macs and Ace Hardware.  Enough tire stores.  Good Ford, Dodge, Chevrolet, and Toyota dealerships in Dickinson.

In the Winter, you can go to one of the best indoor recreation centers in the U.S.:  hockey rink, competition pool, leisure pool, basketball courts, volleyball courts, tennis courts, racquetball courts, weight room, cardio equipment, climb wall, and track.  In the summer you can swim, fish, canoe, ski, cook out at Patterson Lake.  Small University in Dickinson.

The only problem, is the people.  The people in Dickinson are not friendly, not cooperative, not helpful, and not hospitable.  They do not like people from out of state, and they do not even like each other.

I think that I have finally figured out why the people in Dickinson are so hostile:  For one hundred years Dickinson had been very poor, education was not valued because there was nothing to do with it, and no way to get ahead.  All of the great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents of the people living in Dickinson now, felt that they were never going to be anything or get ahead, they weren’t going to, but in order to feel O.K. about their position in life, they were going to make sure that nobody else got ahead either, and the only way that they were going to “get ahead”, was to let other people fail.  Therefore, if anyone needed any help in Dickinson, the way to “get ahead” was to let other people fail.

I never could understand why the people in Dickinson were so unhelpful, until I realized that the only way these people here had to feel successful, was when somebody here failed.  One of the many things that led me to this belief, was that I saw people in Dickinson did not celebrate financial success by building a nice large home, or buying a Jaguar, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, or Porsche, they appeared to not be interested in having anything nice for themselves, but instead were intensely interested in what the lower middle class and low class people were doing.  Some of the successful people in Dickinson appear to delight in the paycheck-to-paycheck existence of many people on Dickinson.  The successful, the middle class, the lower middle class, and the low class in Dickinson, for the most part all agree about not having a homeless shelter in Dickinson, because somebody has got to be failing in order for them to feel good about themselves.

Christianity In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I have written a great deal about people being hostile, unfriendly, uncooperative, and not helpful in Dickinson.  I have been upset about it.  I tried to understand it, discuss it, find reasons for it, explain it.

About one year ago, I began attending a small Christian Church in Dickinson.  I wanted to see if there were any good people in Dickinson.

I have tried to help more than several people in Dickinson, but hardly ever did I just give anyone money.  At the Church that I began going to, I did give some people money, people who seemed to legitimately need money: a visiting pastor and his wife, an out-of-state worker who was homeless, an out-of-state young person who was almost homeless, and to the pastor of the church whose family was having difficulties.  Some of the people in the Church were looking for work, I offered some work that I had available to three people.

I tried to give, what I could afford to give, in an instance when I thought that a person really needed help, in order to try to help some, and hoping that others in the Church would also try to help that individual.  Please remember, I stated a few months ago, that my first job was not that busy, my second job was not that busy, so I had to get a third job, I don’t have a lot of extra money to spare.

I became aware, that though this was a small church, this Church had a great deal of money.  I thought that this was both good and bad.  Announcements were made each month, about some very large donations that this Church had made to other churches, and I thought that this was both good and bad.  The very large amount of money that was in the bank, the very large money donations that were made to other churches outside this area from this Church, I thought, “Hold on, what about all of these individuals right here in Dickinson who need help?  Why can’t we help these people right here in Dickinson?  Why can’t we help these people first?”

There are several people in Dickinson, that I have helped again and again.  One of them, I really don’t want to be friends with him anymore because I kind of feel exhausted from helping him after many many self-inflicted vehicle breakdowns.  Another person that I know, who needed money very much, I got him a job working with me.  Shortly, after I got him hired to work with me, he became difficult and pig-like, partly because he was tired, and I regretted hiring him.  In a second job that I have, I have hired this same person to help me on about eight different projects, he usually gets tired and cranky and has to go sit down, and I swear to myself that I will never hire him again.  About the same time that I had to get a third job, this person was having severe financial problems.  I got him hired to work with me.  I re-did his resume and helped him through the application process, which was difficult.  I did some pre-interview coaching with him, and did some practice interview questioning.  Because I had more experience, was overqualified, and would be there to help him, my friend who was less experienced and less qualified, was hired to work with me.

The first week on this new job, my friend really let me down one day when he was working by himself, he could have cost both of us our jobs.  He apologized the next day, and said that he realized he was totally wrong.  About two weeks later, he did the same thing again when he was working by himself, and it could have cost both of us our jobs.  The next day, this time he did not apologize, instead he threatened to quit because I had yelled at him, and he started to imply that he was going to attempt to get me fired for being verbally abusive to him, under the “hostile work place employment laws”.

I couldn’t believe it.  I had gotten this guy hired to work with me through a lot of effort.  He would not have gotten this job without me, he had not even known that this job existed, and he was not a very good candidate for this job.  Now, it looked like he was going to try to get me fired, which would have resulted in him being fired too, when it became known why I had reprimanded him.  Besides losing this job, I had more to worry about, I had two extra trucks, and two work trailers on property that this person owned.  I was paying him rent, but not high rent.  It appeared that I had better start looking for some place else to park four things.

I called the pastor of the Church that I had been going to, to ask him if he knew anywhere that I could park my two extra trucks and trailers.  I explained the situation to him, that I was really upset that my friend was trying to get me fired from my job because I had reprimanded him for twice doing something that could have caused us both to lose our jobs, and now I needed to get my trucks and trailers off of his property.  I knew that the pastor’s sons had farms outside of Dickinson.  I knew that one of the church members had 3,000 acres outside of Dickinson.

I never heard back from this pastor.  I didn’t ask for money, I asked if he knew of a place for me to park my two trucks and two trailers, knowing that he did know several places belonging to Church members.  I said that I was worried about losing this job, I needed this job right now.  I didn’t hear back from him.

As I stated earlier in this blog post, I have given money to the pastor of this Church, I have given money to several of the Church members, I have offered to give work to several Church members.  As I have already stated, this Church has a very large amount of money in the bank, and they make announcements each month about having donated large amounts of money to churches outside of this area.  I didn’t ask for money, I just asked for help.  Why can’t anyone help me?

My friend realized that he would more likely lose his job than me, for complaining that I yelled at him for what he did.  I don’t have to get my trucks and trailers off of his property at the moment.  I did see again, that there is something wrong with people in North Dakota.  Why was my friend trying to cause me to lose my job, after I have helped him so many times?  Why was the Church that I was going to, refusing to help me, when I had given money and had helped people in the Church?

 

A Few Good Businesses In Watford City, North Dakota

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1.  CENEX Gas Station.  The CENEX Gas Station, located right on the Disenchanted Highway, is one of the best businesses in Watford City.  In order to fulfill the need in Watford City, this CENEX Gas Station sells way more than gasoline and diesel fuel.  They have a deli that makes O.K. food.  They have a good selection of the following items that are high quality  (I’m not joking):  Chain saws, safety cones, hard hats, hand tools, power tools, mechanics tools, industrial and household hardware, tractor truck hardware.  For example, they have 36″ long pipe wrenches for sale, how many gas stations have that?  My favorite thing, is that they have a very large selection of Carhart clothing for sale.

For those of you who don’t know, especially people from the South, you can’t wear normal clothing in North Dakota in the Winter, it won’t work.  Winter jackets that you buy in the South, will not work in North Dakota.  There are a few clothing manufacturers that make work clothing, what you might even call industrial work clothing, that is meant to be worn when working outdoors in below 0 degree Fahrenheit weather,  Carhart is one of them.  Carhart makes very good quality jeans, thermal lined jeans, thermal lined overalls, all kinds of good looking work shirts, many types of very warm jackets, and also very very warm jackets.  I have sometimes been depressed working in Watford City, and the only thing that I had to look forward to, was getting off work and buying a new Carhart jacket at the CENEX Gas Station.

At the CENEX Gas Station, the prices are very fair, they are not high.  There are probably about six cashier women, they have all been very friendly.  Reminder: this CENEX Gas Station has probably saved many many dumb asses that came to Watford City not having what they needed, especially winter clothing.

2.  Taco Johns.  I hate Taco Johns everywhere else, because they take a lot longer to make your food than Taco Bell, but in Watford City, I like Taco Johns.  They make the food quickly enough, they are friendly, the food is O.K., and the food does not cost too much.

3.  NAPA Auto Parts.  The parts persons are friendly, and the prices are not high.

4.  Teddy’s Hotel and Teddy’s Lounge.  Currently, the staff is friendly, and the hotel is clean.  This is a new hotel, just a couple of years old.  The furnishings are new, and nice.  There are a few attractive women who work in the Bar/Restaurant, and some nice intelligent women who work there.  Impossible to escape in Watford City, are the oil field workers who know half as much as they should, yet talk twice as loud and twice as much.  At Teddy’s Bar/Restaurant, there is wall that blocks off the bar from half of the restaurant seating area, so that you don’t have to listen to or look at the oil field workers at the bar.  (Most of the oil field companies in North Dakota have greatly reduced their personnel, keeping only their best workers.  Most of the remaining oil field workers in Watford City are silent, tight-lipped, and restrained.  In order to not get into any trouble and keep their job, they keep their mouth shut, go straight home after work, and do not go to bars.  It is only the fools and just-got-heres that don’t know to be quiet, at a nice hotel bar.)