If you want to see attractive women in Dickinson, North Dakota, you’re not going to, unless you can find some on YouTube.
This video of Piper Blush was so funny, that I had to show it. Please watch this video past the first several minutes, you will see that it is worth it. Piper talks funny, partly because she is French-Canadian, and partly because she is being funny. She is not stupid at all, but in order to be likable, she doesn’t want to act like a know-it-all.
About one week ago, I wrote a blog post about all of the crime and drug dealing at the apartment building where I live in downtown Dickinson almost causing me to move. I don’t want to live here, I would like to get out, but I don’t think that I could escape the drug problem by moving to a more expensive apartment building in Dickinson, the occupancy rates are so low at the new apartment buildings, that they will rent to anyone.
This past week, I began looking at the real estate multiple listings for properties in this area, and I found one that was very low priced in Belfield, North Dakota, which is 24 miles west of Dickinson.
This property, which I will give the details of below, was perfectly fine with me, though many people would not find it appealing. You have to keep in mind, that my first year in Dickinson back in 2011 during the oil boom, I slept in a 1978 truck bed camper, and I took showers at the company where I worked, or at the Tiger Truck stop. My second year back in Dickinson in 2013, I slept in an enclosed utility trailer that was 7 ft x 14 ft, with no water and no sewer connections. In 2011 and 2013, I was very cold when the temperature was below 0 degrees Fahrenheit outside, while trying to live in a camper with one electric heater.
The property that I saw in the Dickinson real estate multiple listing guide last week that interested me, was a 3 br, 1 ba, 1,000 square foot manufactured home on a 75 ft x 140 ft owned lot, for $25,000. According to the website Realtor.com, for a 30 year mortgage at 6% apr, the combined monthly payment for the mortgage, property tax, and insurance would be $106 per month, total.
Because I can’t park my equipment trailers and some of my vehicles at the apartment where I live now, my combined storage and rent payment is $500 per month. Which is better, $500 per month to live in an apartment building with drug dealers and crime, or $106 per month to live in your own home, on your own land?
$25,000 is pretty cheap for a 3 br, 1 ba home on its own lot, for this area, or for any area. From 2009 to 2015 during the oil boom, the rent for this manufactured home would have been $2,000 per month, which equals $24,000 per year.
I went and looked at this manufactured home, inside and out, on Friday of last week, and I took a video of it which I will show below. I liked this manufactured home, it was fine with me, the yard, the outside, and the inside. On the good side, it is fully furnished, and all of the furniture, washer and dryer come with it. On the bad side, the roofing shingles on the south side are cupped, and will have to be replaced. A new roof will cost about $5,000.
The real estate agent was pleasant and professional. He told me that the property had been purchased by a company that needed to provide a place for three workers to live, but now that this company no longer does business in North Dakota, they just want to sell this property. Other prospective buyers had offered to make a large cash down payment, and make monthly payments to the property owner, but all of these offers were declined. The company wants to receive complete payment at one time, and be done.
A little over a year ago, I received a mortgage application package to complete from Dakota Community Bank where I have an account. When I spoke to the loan officer again at Dakota Community Bank on this past Friday, she said that Dakota Community Bank will no longer lend money on any manufactured home whatsoever, no matter how new it is, or how much owned land is involved. Later I had a short discussion about a personal loan using my vehicles as collateral, but most of these vehicles are not in North Dakota, and their value would be assessed at wholesale trade-in value, which is nothing.
I talked to someone at ENG Lending in Dickinson, and their policy is that they will loan money on a new manufactured home at the dealer, but not on a used manufactured home. I spoke to a loan officer at Gate City Bank in Dickinson, and they said that they looked up this property, and would not loan money on this property because the area that it was in was zoned commercial. I suspect that Gate City Bank was just looking for a reason to excuse themselves from lending on an older manufactured home.
I was told that I would have a high likelihood of getting a loan from the bank in Belfield where the home is located, Choice Financial. I went to Choice Financial Bank on Friday last week, discussed this with loan officers, but they have not called me back. I don’t think that they can do anything with an older manufactured home either.
In a way, this whole process was funny and unbelievable to me. All throughout Dickinson, all of the business owners, real estate agents, property managers, property investors, business people, financial people, and bankers, like to talk and make announcements about how the economy in Dickinson is booming, growing, expanding, and taking off. Yet all of the bank owners have so little faith in the economy in Dickinson, that they have issued instructions that no loans are to be made on manufactured homes even if they are on owned land.
The other thing that is kind of funny and absurd to me, is that this property is not 3 times my annual income, not 2 times my annual income, but ½ of my annual income. In many parts of the U.S., people are getting home loans, where the cost of the home is 3 to 4 times the person’s annual income. Yet in Dickinson, I can’t get a loan to buy a home on owned land, that is ½ of my annual income. Or, I could probably be approved to buy a new car in Dickinson for $35,000, a car, whereas I can not get a loan for a lesser amount, for a 3 br, 1 ba home, where I would live, for less money than I have been paying for rent the past four years.
I could put the whole $25,000 purchase on my credit cards, I receive credit card checks that I can use just like a regular check with no discount to the recipient. But my interest rate would be 18%, which is about $4,500 per year in interest alone. Why would I want to pay about $375 per month, just in interest?
I discussed with the real estate agent, making a cash offer for $18,000. The real estate agent said that this proposal had already been made to the property owner, he refused, he will accept nothing less than $25,000.
The real estate agent, each of the bank loan officers, the other bank personnel, and the Stark County personnel that I spoke to in the past several days, were all pleasant, polite, and professional. I like this manufactured home, it is fine with me, I can afford it, I don’t mind paying the asking price, and I don’t mind living in Belfield. I just could not get financing.
There were many other people who also wanted to buy this manufactured home, on its own 75 ft x 140 ft lot. The loan payments on this property, would be lower than just about anything you could rent in this area, even lower than the rent on an old studio apartment. However, no one could get a loan, the owner would not accept a large down payment and finance it, nor would the owner accept cash payment for a lesser amount.
I got a lot of insight from this. No matter what the talk is on the street, in the newspapers, and on television about how well the economy in Dickinson is doing, the people with money, the people who know what is really going on, are not about to loan money on manufactured homes, even manufactured homes on owned land, for at least three reasons.
One, they expect the economy in Dickinson to decline, people to continue to lose their jobs, and they expect people to default on their home loans. Two, with the economy in Dickinson declining, and people defaulting on their home loans, who are they going to get to buy a foreclosed manufactured home, or who are they going to get to rent a foreclosed manufactured home? Three, with the economy in Dickinson declining, wealthy people and bank owners do not want to be stuck owning multiple manufactured home properties that people have defaulted on, these things will be worth pennies on the dollar there are going to be so many vacancies in Dickinson.
Think about this, on the other hand, if the bank owners and the people with money in Dickinson, truly believed that the economy in Dickinson was expanding, they would not hesitate to make loans on manufactured homes on owned land, for at least three reasons.
One, with more job openings expected in Dickinson, people would not be losing their jobs and defaulting on their home loans. Two, so what if someone defaulted on their home loan while the economy was growing, it would be easy to find someone else to buy or rent a foreclosed manufactured home. Three, so what if someone defaulted on their manufactured home loan when the economy was expanding, the value of manufactured homes on owned property would be going up and up, who wouldn’t want to own assets that are appreciating in value?
At this point, I don’t care, I am done trying to work this purchase out. I will just sit back and watch this manufactured home not sell, and continue to decline in value. I don’t care if someone else finds a way to purchase this home, to live in, or to own this home as an investment and rent it out. I have nothing against this home, I like it, but it will need a new roof soon. Here is the video, if you want to make an offer on this home, just look on any real estate site for Belfield, North Dakota.
I have lived in Dickinson, North Dakota for a little over five years now. There is a shortage of women, and a scarcity of attractive women. There are very few places to go, and very few things to do, so I mostly stay inside and look at things on the internet, especially YouTube videos.
When I click on the YouTube website, the YouTube site displays about forty different YouTube channels and videos that I might be interested in. Most of these channels and videos are about Bigfoot, automobiles, exploring abandoned places, metal detecting, travelling, off-roading, and some social media personalities.
The social media personalities that I have been watching recently are VeeTwoEye, Stephi Lee, Victoria X Rave, and Poppy. Yesterday, YouTube displayed a video from a young lady named Piper Blush.
Piper Blush’s video was kind of strange, but in a good way, as far as most men are concerned. Piper is French, she has a very high pitch voice, she has a strange, almost idiotic manner of speaking, which makes her seem air headed. Unfortunately, many man are turned on by large breasted, unaware, seemingly dumb girls. I suppose this makes men feel like they would be able to seduce a girl like this. It’s like hungry wolves spotting a defenseless sheep.
Piper is not stupid, she probably understands men, better than they understand themselves. Piper has over 400,000 YouTube subscribers, and I am sure that most men watch her videos to the end. The number of views that her videos get, the amount of time spent watching each of her videos, and the number of subscribers that she has, may result in YouTube paying her anywhere from $1,500 to $5,000 per month, probably more toward the high side of this range. ( After writing this, I read that her monthly YouTube payments may be as high as $27,000 per month. Her YouTube videos have over 79 million views.)
I said that Piper Blush is French, but she is French-Canadian. Part of the way that she speaks, is a slight parody or embellishment of how people in Quebec speak, where she lives.
Piper’s videos are about ordinary, everyday things, and people watch her videos primarily because Piper is attractive, happy, and funny. Here is one of her videos:
I watched a second YouTube video of Piper, where she was washing off and asphalt driveway with a garden hose. At the end of this video, she said that she was going to spray her tight, white T-shirt, but then she said “kidding”, and walked off. This made me mad, because I wanted to see. Like most men, I would like to see Piper naked.
For better or worse, I got my wish. One of the commentors to her video, wrote that she has pornography videos on the website Pornhub. I went and looked, and yes, she does. I watched two of her pornography videos, and I felt bad for her, because you could say that “her partner was not up for it”.
Sometimes, when women shock you, it is unpleasant at first, because this could be something that you didn’t want from them or didn’t expect from them. After feeling and thinking different things, I believe that most men conclude that everyone is better off, if people are able to show, and others are able to learn, what each other is like.
In Dickinson, North Dakota where I live, I believe that most people have to hide the way that they are. There would be too many repercussions from friends, relatives, neighbors, and employers for people behaving too differently, such as attractive women getting too much attention for being friendly, dressing provocatively, or being too available for dating. This is why there are no women like Piper Blush in Dickinson, they all move away.
About one year ago, I moved into an older apartment building in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota. For 3-1/2 years prior to this, while I was working in Dickinson, I paid rent to a homeowner on the north side of Dickinson to stay in his 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home. For the past eight years, I have owned a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home in Idaho, where I have spent very little time due to working in North Dakota, Utah, and Texas.
The 3br/2ba home on the north side of Dickinson where I lived for 3-1/2 years, was very similar to living in my 3br/2ba home in Idaho. All of the neighbors in the rural area on the north side of Dickinson believed, and behaved the same way.
All of the neighbors in the rural area on the north side of Dickinson had extra trucks, trailers, equipment, motorcycles, four wheelers, boats, and garages where they worked on all of the things that they owned. They took care of their property, were quiet, didn’t play loud music, didn’t drive recklessly or carelessly, and stayed on their own property.
All of the neighbors in the rural area quickly spotted any vehicle that was unfamiliar to them, and watched the vehicle to see where it was going and what they were going to do. Most of the neighbors had a couple of outdoor dogs, that would start barking whenever someone unfamiliar was anywhere near their yard or the neighbor’s yard, which caused people to look outside or come outside to see what the dogs were barking at.
In the 3-1/2 years of living in the rural area on the north side of Dickinson, no one had any theft or trespassers. We had a medium sized bird dog that was very alert, and every neighbor surrounding us had medium sized to large outdoor hunting dogs that guarded the houses. One of the neighbors had huskies and malamutes that never came inside.
Due to the home owner where I was staying being older and having health problems, which caused among other things, him to come into the living room and turn on the television and make a lot of noise during the late night and early a.m. hours, which woke me up and prevented me from falling back to sleep, I wanted to go and live some place else. The oil boom was over in North Dakota by the end of 2015, and rents all throughout Dickinson had decreased through 2016 and 2017.
I did not want to spend very much money for rent in Dickinson. I was just here to work, to try to make as much money as possible, to try to save as much money as possible, to try to spend as little as possible, so that one day I could return to my home in Idaho, and resume a normal life.
Just as an aside, to answer the question, What do I mean by resuming a normal life? For instance, in the area of Idaho where I had lived, there was an equal number of men and women. Perhaps even a slightly higher number of women. It was common for women in Idaho to want to make a good impression, to try to have a nice appearance, to be polite, and to try to be friendly and helpful. Why? Because they wanted to make friends, make acquaintances, have the chance for more opportunities, to advance professionally, to be asked out on dates, or to be invited to go places.
But let me get back to Dickinson. In the Spring of 2017, I sought to find an inexpensive apartment in Dickinson. The older apartment buildings downtown, had significantly lower rent than the newly constructed apartment buildings on the outer perimeter of Dickinson. At one of the older apartment buildings downtown, which was probably at 50% occupancy, the apartment manager gave me a very good deal on a two bedroom apartment, because I had very good credit, two jobs, had already been working in Dickinson for four years, and I did not have any criminal record.
I liked the 2 bedroom apartment very much, it had a nice view, and it did not cost very much. I was glad to have privacy, and quiet at night when I was sleeping, which I had not had while I was living with a homeowner on the north side of Dickinson. I also liked the convenience of living downtown, it was a shorter drive to places like the grocery store.
Within a couple of months of moving into an apartment in downtown Dickinson, several bad things began happening at about the same time. In order to not be a jerk, or start any problems with my apartment neighbors, I did not want to take any person’s parking space. So I parked my vehicles on the street. I had to look all over town, but I found a business owner who was willing to rent to me a spot to park one of my trucks, about four blocks away from where I lived downtown.
When I had traveled all over the United States for work, to Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Texas, and North Dakota, I kept a large locked trunk, chained and locked to the back seat frame, inside of my truck. In this trunk, I kept my birth certificate, social security card, $500 emergency money, and a large 11″x17″ portfolio binder showing years and years of my engineering work. After 15 years of travelling like this, working in places like Pueblo, Phoenix, Laredo, and Fort Worth, I thought that this locked and chained down trunk inside of my locked truck was safe enough in Dickinson.
I was wrong. My entire truck was stolen in downtown Dickinson. I handed out flyers all over southwest North Dakota, and after a week, different people telephoned me to tell me who had my stolen truck. I was able to contact associates and relatives of the person who stole my truck, who was already wanted by the Police in Dickinson for his seventh and eighth felonies. Due to pressure from friends, relatives, and the Police, my truck was left abandoned beside Hwy 85.
Missing from my stolen truck was about $1,500 to $2,000 in tools and equipment. The electric trailer brake controller, radar detector, two spare truck tires, spare trailer tire, truck bed tool box, floor jack, air tank, tool sets, carrier rack, and the four good tires that were on it, had all been removed and sold. The $500 cash went in his pocket, and my birth certificate, social security card, portfolio of work, business cards, owners manual with service history and receipts, all went in the garbage somewhere, probably.
At about the same time that my truck was stolen in downtown Dickinson, I was having problems at my apartment building in downtown Dickinson. The source of many of these problems, were two apartments in my building where drugs were being used and sold.
Shortly after moving into this building, several residents and myself, witnessed the Police trying to escort a resident from one of the drug apartments to their Police car. This young lady repeatedly tried to injure herself by intentionally banging her head against the brick walls, doors, Police car, and inside the Police car. She was obviously out of her mind on drugs.
At all hours of the day and night, people would come and go from these two drug apartments in the downtown apartment building where I lived. Or, sometimes people would stay and get high, then sit or wander in the apartment building common areas in a zombie like stupor.
After I had lived in this downtown apartment building for about six weeks, I telephoned the apartment building management, and I told them that they had a drug problem in this building. People coming and going from two apartments throughout the day and night, people sitting in a stupor on balconies, walking the hallway stoned in the early a.m. hours. The building management asked me to specify which two apartments. When I was reluctant to do so, the building management asked if it was apartment xx and xx, and I said yes, exactly. Since other residents of the building had already complained and had identified the two apartments, I gave some additional information.
It turned out, that the main drug dealing apartment was not even supposed to be occupied by the people who were living there. A mother of an adult son, she had rented the apartment, then she went off to live someplace else, and she left her adult son in the apartment. This adult son who did not have a job, he invited other people who did not have jobs, to come and stay with him at the apartment where he wasn’t even on the lease. This group of unemployed people, none of them were on the apartment lease, bought and sold drugs all day, and used drugs all day.
The apartment building managers and the Police, made an attempt to clear the apartment building of all drug activity, which helped some, but there was a recurrence of problems. This sector of downtown Dickinson, had more than several drug houses and drug apartments. People would continue to come to this apartment building, or wander around this immediate area, seeking drugs. People who were not in their right minds, would either come straight to this building or eventually wander over to this building, and they would try to hang out here, hoping or thinking that a drug dealer or someone with drugs would turn up any minute, because they had got drugs here in the past.
This led to things like me finding someone who was not a resident of the building, almost completely passed out and unable to move, laying in the stairwell of this building at 3:00 a.m. Finding someone who was not a resident of the building, sitting in their car hiding behind the garages, acting out of their mind on drugs. Finding someone who was not a resident of the building, shuffling around and acting crazy in the parking lot around the vehicles at 2:00 a.m. And the combination of people who do not live here loitering or wandering through the property 24 hours per day, while at the same time residents find that someone has removed property from their car or tampered with their car.
In this past month, I found a couple of 20-23 year olds that didn’t belong in my neighbor’s backyard where he keeps his equipment, motorcycles, and four wheelers; a non-resident with a station wagon filled with garbage bags trying to fill up our one apartment building garbage container; a couple of drug impaired non-residents searching through our apartment building garbage container with flashlights for about 20 minutes, who were probably looking for bank statements and credit card bills. And finally, the drug dealer, drug user adult son who does not have a job, is back at his mother’s apartment dealing drugs.
The apartment building management, and the Police, had tried to rid this apartment building of the drug dealing about eight months ago, by confronting the drug dealers, seeing if any drugs could be detected or found, and threatening the lease holders of the two suspected apartments with eviction. Months and months later, people were still coming onto this apartment building property 24 hours per day hoping to find drugs, because they had gotten drugs here in the past.
Within one day of the drug dealer with no job being back on the apartment building property, I watched black guys from out of state with inner city ghetto vehicles driving right up to this apartment like it’s a drive through or convenience store for drugs.
(If you want to see what an out of state, inner city ghetto vehicle used by drug dealers looks like, go peak through the fence of the impound lot at East End Towing in Dickinson to see the Range Rover which has been lowered with custom wheels, California license plates, with the windows broken out of it, and beat all to hell from misuse and abuse.)
I thought about calling the apartment building management, or going and talking to them in person, and saying to them that they have got to get rid of the people in this apartment, evict the lease holder once and for all. I think that it would have probably turned into an argument, with me threatening to leave, or the apartment management suggesting that I leave, because they are tired of hearing about it.
I think that there is so much crime in downtown Dickinson now, there are so many low income and inner city ghetto people that have moved to Dickinson recently, that the property managers and the Police are overwhelmed, they don’t know what to do, or how to handle it.
I asked the homeowner where I used to live in Dickinson, if I could come back and live with him in an emergency, because I can foresee getting into an argument with the property management, where they will ask me to leave. He is partly sympathetic, because he knows that my truck and all of the property in my truck would never had gotten stolen if he would have allowed me to keep my truck parked at his house.
When I think about renting an apartment elsewhere in Dickinson, what I am certain of, is that I sure as hell am not going to pay more money to live in a newer apartment building in Dickinson, and still be around apartments where people sell and use drugs. The new apartment buildings are at 50% occupancy, they will rent to anyone, and there are so many lower income and inner city ghetto people that have recently moved to Dickinson, that I don’t see how I can ever escape the crime and drug dealing in Dickinson by renting any apartment in Dickinson.
Note: I want to explain why I associate all of this crime in Dickinson with low income people and inner city ghetto people who have recently moved to Dickinson.
People who spent a lot of time and money to obtain a college degree, or worked their way up to management level, or professional level, or have enough demonstratable skill and experience to have a good paying job, these people all know better than to jeopardize all of their hard work by attempting to steal things out of people’s vehicles, garages, and homes. To get caught with a stolen vehicle, trailer, or equipment. Also, they are usually capable of buying the things that they want, rather than taking the foolish and unnecessary risk of stealing things.
It is mostly low income and inner city ghetto people that look at the risk of being caught, convicted, and sentenced for trying to steal a phone or laptop out of a vehicle, or valuables out of someone’s home, as being worth the risk. The risk of them spending 30 days in jail, or one year in prison, is worth the $200 to $400 they might receive from stealing something from someone’s vehicle or burglarizing a home.
About ten days ago, I shared a video from the YouTube channel Explore With Us, that showed a beautiful abandoned home on a mountain outside of Searchlight, Nevada. At least the builder of this home, Mr. John Kay, got to enjoy his home for ten years after he finished building it, before he died.
Yesterday I watched another video made by the YouTube channel Explore With Us, that showed an abandoned mining operation in Nevada, that looked like it ceased operating in about 2002, due to the sudden death of the owner.
At the mining operation, was the mine owner’s personal home that he shared with his wife, an office building, several shop buildings, several large generators, many tools, and about ten vehicles, that were all left abandoned, just as they sat.
From some legal documents and personal items that were left half packed in the mine owner’s home, it looks like the heirs became so troubled, that they just left everything where it was.
This video is very sad, because it showed what looked like about twenty years of work to accumulate all of the equipment, material, supplies, vehicles, home, office, and shop buildings, and there it sat to go to waste once the owner died.
I first came to work in Dickinson, North Dakota in 2011. I went to work in Texas in 2012, and then I came back to work in Dickinson in 2013. I have been here for the past five years.
I have had ups, downs, and very bad times with employment in Dickinson, North Dakota. My friends and acquaintances have had a worse time than I have had, many of them have had to leave Dickinson and North Dakota.
My problems with employment in Dickinson have never been about the hourly wage rate that I was paid. So I want job seekers in Dickinson to keep in mind, not to focus solely on what wage rates a company is offering, but to pay attention to other things about the company.
Year 2017, was one of my worst years of employment in Dickinson, North Dakota. The problems that I faced, are something that job seekers in Dickinson should know about.
I have been employed with the same small company in Dickinson for the past four years. Sometimes this company pays very, very well when it has a project that I can work on. Sometimes this company does not have a project that I can work on, so I go look for other jobs at other companies that I can do part time or full time.
I want to emphasize several reasons why I continue to work for this small company in Dickinson, that does not always have work for me. One, sometimes it pays very, very well, like as much as $8,000 per month. Two, the owner of the company leaves everyone alone, it is totally up to the employee to do their job, the owner does not check on the employees, the employees are on their own. Three, I like this type of work very much. Four, due to the nature of the work, the company owner, and the other employees, there are usually no work conflicts of any kind. Five, I have usually been able to find a 2nd or 3rd job outside of this job when necessary, to make enough money.
The reason why I had such a bad year in 2017, was because the small company that I was working for did not have a project to put me on at the start of the year, and two of the other companies that I went to work for in 2017, were very bad companies.
The first new company that I went to work for in 2017, as far as I had heard, it was a good company, they had a lot of work, and they were branching out into different areas. On my very first day of work, when I got to work at 4:30 a.m., right away it turned out to be the most disorganized, mismanaged company that I had ever worked for. My gut instinct was to walk away from this company right then, and I might have been better off if I had done just that, and found a job with a different company.
The biggest problem with this company, turned out to be, that they didn’t pay all the wages that were owed. I was missing a lot of money out of my second, and my third pay check. I found out that there were already about four complaints with the Department of Labor against this company for non-payment of wages.
After the fact, I found out that if I would have asked other people working in the oil field, I would have heard not to go to work for this company. Don’t believe what you read in the Dickinson Press newspaper about companies in Dickinson, what they write is sometimes almost the same thing as a paid for advertisement, rather than the truth.
What I learned, is that prospective employees should probably call the North Dakota Department of Labor to see how many complaints there are against a company. Also, prospective employees should look the company owner and the company managers up on the North Dakota Court Repository website to see what lawsuits have been filed against them, and what criminal records they have.
The second new company that I went to work for in Dickinson in 2017, was a very long established company in Dickinson. Some of my co-workers were agreeable, and some of my co-workers were unfriendly. It turned out, that many of this company’s work projects were being completed, and as Winter was approaching, all of the workers were worried about being laid off. Each worker was worried about being let go, though they wanted to stay on as long as possible, maybe even being one of the few people who kept their job through the Winter. This was one of the reasons why some workers were uncooperative with each other, Winter lay offs were coming.
This second new company for me in 2017, due to a mistake, they shorted me a couple hundred dollars on several pay checks, and I quit because I was so angry about it. But one of the reasons why I was so angry, was the day that I found out that I had been shorted so much money on my pay checks, a foreman who was not my foreman, was giving me a hard time, and there were several reasons why this was wrong.
It was a while after I quit, before I thought to look up on the internet who this foreman was. This foreman had been charged in Arizona with 1st degree murder, armed robbery, drug charges, fleeing the police, and DUI, in multiple different cases. On his company job application where it asked, “Have you ever been charged or convicted of any crime?”, I wonder if he wrote down “Yes, 1st degree murder, armed robbery, fleeing and eluding police, DUI, possession of drugs and paraphernalia.”
I then looked up other foremen at this company on the North Dakota Court Repository, and some of them had pretty bad criminal records, and always drug charges. It then kind of fell into place, like the pieces of a puzzle, the way that people behaved, and the things that they did, that it was kind of a criminal and drug culture at this company. So again I recommend to prospective employees, to look up the company owners and managers on the internet, and on the North Dakota Court Repository website to see what lawsuits and criminal charges they have had.
Just as it was becoming Winter in 2017, I was being hired at a company in New Town, North Dakota, which is about 100 miles north of Dickinson. I had made this drive before on Hwy 22 going north to New Town for work, and it is not an easy drive. You have to go through the Killdeer Mountains through an area called “The Breaks”, up steep hills, down steep hills, and around corners through the mountains.
I thought that this job paid $17 per hour, for about 12 hours per day, which is $204 per day. It didn’t, it paid $15 per hour, for 8 hours per day, which is only $120 per day. I was in trouble. I was willing to drive the 100 miles up to New Town, and probably having to drive back each day, to work 12 hours and make $204 each day. But I couldn’t afford to do this for only $120 per day. After taxes were taken out, and paying for gas, I would only have about $65 per day left, not enough to pay all of my bills.
I didn’t know what I was going to do. Jobs get scarce in North Dakota once it becomes Winter. I was thinking that I was going to have to sleep in my pickup truck in New Town, I couldn’t afford the $35 in gas each day to drive up from Dickinson and back. It costs $10 to take shower at the truck stop in New Town, but where was I going to park and sleep in my truck without getting chased off?
When I was trying to figure out what I was going to do, the owner of the small company that I had been working for, for the past four years called, and he asked me if I wanted to, or would I be able to work 48 hours per week on a project, and I said that yes I would.
Out of nowhere, just by chance, I got a pretty good paying work assignment. Not long after that, I had been stalling paying my Year 2016 income taxes by filing an extension, and I found out that I owed $2,000 in income taxes. Plus I had vehicle insurance, homeowners insurance, and property taxes back in Idaho all due at about that time.
I hadn’t known how bad of a financial position I was in, I had been trying not to think about it. I had not made much money at the first and the second new company that I went to work for in Dickinson, and the third company in New Town was a fail too. I was really lucky that the company owner where I had been working called me to ask me if I could work on a project.
One of the reasons why I wrote this blog post, is to tell job seekers in Dickinson, that you can really get yourself into financial trouble in Dickinson by going to work for the wrong company. A company in Dickinson may offer an attractive hourly wage rate, but this will mean nothing if you can’t work at that company for very long. Beware, a human resources person or the person hiring you may lead you to believe that you can work for their company year round, in order to get you to take the job, however they may lay off most of their workers in October and November.
Remember, the first company that I went to work for in 2017, not only was it a horribly run company, they shorted me a couple of hundred dollars on each pay check. It took me a while to get a job at a second company in 2017, and again this company shorted me a couple of hundred dollars on each pay check. It took me a while to get a job with a third company in 2017, but this job didn’t pay nearly enough due to the number of hours per day and the long commute distance. Having three bad jobs in a row like this, can lead to financial ruin.
What one of my readers pointed out to me in a comment, was that I would have been better off if I had just gone to work at WalMart in Dickinson for $15 per hour. She was right, I would have been better off just going to work at WalMart.
In order to not spoil things for you, I don’t want to tell you too much information about a young lady named Poppy who makes YouTube videos. Let me just show a couple of her videos first, they are each only about a minute long.
When I watch these videos, I like to visualize reality hitting her, something like an angry dog, redneck, or Arab chasing her down the street, or maybe hitting her toe on a sharp metal bed frame.
What began my thinking towards writing this blog post, were two things that happened yesterday. First, in the afternoon I went to a local business in Dickinson where the owner’s wife was working. She is often in a bad mood, and not very friendly. She can act this way if she wants to, I suppose, because she and her husband own this business.
Lately, I am often in bad mood myself, and I don’t feel well, I am just getting over pneumonia. When I entered this business yesterday, the owner’s wife was in a particularly bad mood, looking and sounding unfriendly, and that is kind of an understatement. I thought that maybe I should leave, and just never come back when she is working. I didn’t want this to become a business that I can not use any longer, due to getting into an altercation with the owner’s wife.
I began to consider that there are other businesses in Dickinson that provide the same thing, so if it came to it, I could just go elsewhere, not the end of the world. During the time that I was there, I noticed that there were not any other customers, and I could think of at least one reason why this was the case.
Readers of my blog posts have probably seen me write at least ten times, that I do not go out to bars and restaurants in Dickinson because the waitresses and women staff are unattractive, mean, and crazy, and the Police in Dickinson try as hard as they can to arrest people for DUI. There is no where to go and nothing to do in Dickinson, and because of the Police trying to stop everyone, I just stay in my apartment.
About the only thing that I have to do, is look up things on the internet. I have begun watching a lot of YouTube videos, whatever YouTube presents to me that looks interesting, I will watch it. Yesterday I watched a video titled “Ah, Leah”, which is a music video that showed a compilation of women wearing bikinis.
I thought that this video was funny, because it reminded me of how things were living in Florida up until I was about 32 years old. Though the women in the “Ah, Leah” video seem very attractive now, because I have been living in North Dakota for so long, these women in the video are just average women that you would see every day in Florida.
When I was growing up and going to school in Florida, in elementary, middle school, and high school, there were very few girls that were very unattractive, or very overweight. It was a combination of genetics, environment, and culture. It was relatively warm all year long, so most kids and adults were always doing activities outdoors. People in the community where I lived, which was on the ocean and the intercoastal waterway, were fairly healthy and active.
Also, part of the culture in Florida, where it was warm all year, and people go to the ocean, rivers, and lakes throughout the year, women wanted to look nice in bathing suits. Women wanted to look good to attract the attention of men, to be invited places, to be taken out, to date, and to possibly become married in the future.
Another reason why women wanted to look good, was because they wanted to be invited to socialize with other women. Women naturally recognize the importance of networking, social networks, and the advantages of being accepted and liked by other women. It may seem a mean thing to say, but I have noticed this to be true everywhere that I have ever been, women try to seek out attractive women to be friends with, because they see this as advantageous to them.
Women see and believe that the best looking women have access to the best looking men, the most successful men, the men with the best connections, the best employment opportunities, the most glamorous employment opportunities, offers for travel, offers to attend exclusive events and parties, and opportunities to meet and socialize with wealthy, influential people. Women in Florida just looked at it as an all around good idea to stay in shape, and to look healthy and attractive.
When I was a kid, this was in the 1970s, many people went to the beach on the weekends or they went boating. My mother did not like to go the beach so much when I was a kid, though when she was younger, before I was born, she liked to. I think that this was primarily because my mother had gained weight in her 40s, and she did not feel comfortable being seen in a bathing suit by everyone.
My mother did like to go boating when I was young, so this is what we did on the weekends with other families. Younger families usually started out boating with an eighteen foot ski boat, or multi purpose fishing boat. On Saturday afternoon, the families would go out on the intercoastal river and travel several miles down the river to meet up at an island or a sand bar.
All of the families brought an ice chest or two, filled with soft drinks, beer, wine, snacks, and sandwiches. The adults would park their beach chairs in several inches of water, and sit down to bullshit, catch up on news, unwind, and get drunk.
The kids could all run around like wild animals on the sand bars, screaming and yelling, because there was no where they could go, you could see them, and there wasn’t much that they could get hurt on. On the islands, the kids would go exploring, especially if you told them that there were wild horses, or a hermit, or something.
There would typically be about thirty people parked at one spot on a sand bar or an island. The group of friends and acquaintances, some of them had gone all the way through school together, sometimes even college. They usually had social and business involvement together in the community. Typically, someone would bring a new person with them, who was a friend, relative, co-worker, or business associate, who they thought would enjoy everything.
The group that my parents were friends with, and associated with for practically their entire lives, were real estate agents and brokers, insurance agents and company owners, appraisers, accountants, CPAs, attorneys, pilots, nurses, sales reps, contractors, business owners, and a few trades people. I will go ahead and show the video now of the women in bikinis, because when I was a kid, this is how the women, wives, and mothers looked:
Yup, the real estate agents, insurance agents, accountants, school teachers, attorneys, sales reps, nurses, and wives looked like this at the beach and out boating when I was a kid in Florida in the 1970s. I didn’t know that this was unusual, I just took it for granted.
When some women, wives, and mothers got to be in their late 30s or 40s, they didn’t want to go to the beach anymore, or boating anymore. Their view on life completely changed. They once loved the sun, the water, wearing hardly any clothes, and getting drunk on the weekends, but they changed completely.
I want to explain the departure in women, where some women kept right on going like they always had, and some women completely changed.
There were some women, especially real estate brokers and agency owners, who kept right on going like they always had, enjoying every weekend, partying, and having a good time, into their sixties. Other women in their late 30s or 40s, they retreated into their homes, not coming outside, refusing to go anywhere, and preferring to stand at their kitchen counter trying to give orders to their children and husbands, seemingly trying to unnecessarily make everyone else unhappy, because they were unhappy.
When I was in my teens, and would go to the beach or boating, there were some women, wives, and mothers, who were in their 40s, who were still good looking, friendly, fun, and were nice to be around. There were some married men who had taken up with unofficial younger girlfriends, some men who had become divorced who had younger girlfriends, and some men who had remarried to younger women.
In general, myself, my older sister, my father, my mother, and all of the men and women who continued to enjoy going to the beach, boating, sailing, and flying, we all completely understood why men who were married took up with younger girlfriends, or became divorced and took up with younger girlfriends, once their wife who was in her late 30s or 40s, refused to come outside or go anywhere, and instead wanted to spoil everyone’s good time.
I could say that I don’t know what happens, where you start out with a young 120 lb girlfriend or wife, who likes swimming in the ocean or river, water skiing, being wrestled with and thrown around in the waves while squealing with glee, wearing hardly any or no clothes, boating, sailing, sports cars, and motorcycles, and she later changes into someone who refuses to go anywhere and do anything, and instead wants to be nasty to everyone, glaring, sneering, scowling, trying to stare people down and start fights, but I suppose that I do know what happens.
In my previous blog post, I wrote about what jobs were listed this month of April for Dickinson, North Dakota, on the North Dakota Job Services website, and the Indeed.com website. I categorized some of these job listings as “bullshit sales jobs”, where you are led to believe that you can make a certain amount in sales commissions, but you never receive these commissions.
I have had only a few jobs where part of my pay was supposed to come from sales commissions, but several long time friends of mine have had more experience with this. It is true, that some sales professionals who represent industrial companies that have $50 million or more in annual sales, these sales representatives can and do sometimes make $200,000 per year.
I will try to explain what many or most sales jobs truly are. A company that provides a product or service, can advertise in newspapers, magazines, trade journals, on television, radio, the internet, through mailings, and at trade shows. But another important way to reach customers, is to have an individual sales representative telephone and meet prospective customers in person.
Companies hire very experienced sales people, who likely have a background and education in business and marketing, to be their sales manager, or part of the company management team. The sales manager, or the company management team, know that having sales representatives is not just about making sales, but it is about marketing, advertising, publicity, and creating an interest and familiarity with the product line or services.
The sales manager, or the management team, are interested in recruiting sales representatives not just to make sales, but to perform marketing, advertising, product education, and customer support, whether the sales representatives know this or not.
Companies like to hire young, idealistic, ambitious, hard working, articulate, and nice looking college graduates for sales representative positions, in order to make a good impression with the public. They hire older professional people too, who fit this description. The base salary may only be $12 per hour, which is about $24,000 per year.
A young college graduate, or an older professional person, would not even consider taking a $24,000 per year job, they wouldn’t even apply for a job like this, they would keep looking for a job that paid at least $40,000 per year.
Companies inform job seekers that the base pay is $24,000 per year, but typically a sales representative with their company earns about $50,000 per year through their sales commissions, some sales representatives with their company make $70,000 or $80,000.
Newly hired sales representatives may be given the option to drive their own personal vehicle and be reimbursed for mileage, or they may be provided with a company vehicle. It will all be explained what their sales territory is, whether this is an exclusive territory, or if they share it with other company sales representatives. Or, it will be explained what accounts or customers the sales representative is assigned, and what the expectations are for new customers.
A new sales representative, after making all of the cold calls, following up on leads, driving to all the customers on his route, and meeting new customers in his territory, may find that he makes no sales or few sales in his first month. The sales manager may give the new sales representative a pep talk, about how everyone starts out slow, or about getting customers into the pipeline.
The second and the third month may not be much different, no sales or few sales. However, by this time, the new sales representative may start to catch on to what is happening. The news sale rep may learn, that all of the major existing customers in the territory such as a public school system, hospital chain, automobile dealership line, or heavy equipment line, these accounts and orders are all being serviced by the sales manager.
Next, the new sales rep may learn, that having discussed the product or service with a customer or business in his territory, the customer or business has telephoned the company he represents, and is now dealing with the sales manager or someone else at the company. Customers and businesses sometimes enjoy speaking to the “owner, the people in charge, the people at headquarters, someone more important”, because they think that this is just better.
At about the third or fourth month at a bullshit sales job, it will begin to dawn on a new sales rep, that all they are doing, is driving around, telephoning, and talking to the few prospective customers that the company does not already have, just trying to comb through what has already been picked, for possible crumbs. What they really are, is an unwitting marketing, advertising, public relations, and customer service rep who is only being paid $12 per hour.
Furthermore, how did the sales manager end up with the public school system account, the hospital chain account, the automobile manufacturer dealership account, the heavy equipment manufacturer account? How many sales representatives have there been before, what happened to them, and how long did they work here?
In the end, a new sales rep will discover that each sales rep before him, lasted three months to one year. As each new sales rep realized that they had been lied to and were being cheated, they left, and the sales manager scooped up for himself, whatever business or accounts the most recently departed sales rep had discovered.
In summary, many or most of the sales jobs listed, are bullshit sales jobs, where the salesmen will never be paid the commissions they are told are typical. The true purpose of these sales positions is marketing, advertising, public relations, customer service, and finding a few remaining crumbs in a sales territory that has already been picked. Inevitably, the sales manager will receive the benefit of whatever new business or customers that a new sales rep discovers.
One way to discover that what I am describing is true, look at the local job listings in your area, and make note of the sales rep job listings. When you see a company advertising for sales reps, every three months, for year after year, you have got to wonder why do their sales reps keep quitting after three or four months?
In the past several years, I have written many blog posts where I try to get the information out there, that there are false rumors and misinformation being spread about the need for workers in North Dakota, in order to lure people here.
Business people in North Dakota habitually try to talk up the economy, making broad exaggerations, making things up, and sometimes lying. Business people, politicians, news media, and ordinary citizens, repeat back to each other, what they have heard, but very few people hardly ever take the time to see if what they are saying is true.
It is so frustrating to me, the reality of what is going on in Dickinson, North Dakota, versus what people in Dickinson are saying and talking about.
Since the oil boom ended in North Dakota in 2015, I have seen a net decrease in the amount of businesses in Dickinson, a net decrease in the number of residents, an increase in homes for sale, an increase in apartments for rent, an increase in trailer park vacancies, an increase in vacancies in commercial and retail buildings, real estate prices have gone down, people have been unable to sell their homes, rent prices have gone down, and there are fewer job advertisements.
Just a few highlights are, Delta airlines ceased operations at the Dickinson airport due to lack of customers and lack of profitability, and United airlines tried to cease operations at the Dickinson airport due to lack of customers and lack of profitability. The government prevented United airlines from leaving the Dickinson airport due to an “essential air services” rule.
Sears has closed, JC Penny has closed, Herbergers department store is closing soon, and the Prairie Hills mall has recently been sold. The two largest stores in the Prairie Hills mall were JC Penny and Herbergers. For the stores like Sears, JC Penny, Herbergers, Hobby Artz, and Radio Shack that have closed, there have not been any new or different stores to open to replace these stores.
A few other businesses that have closed in Dickinson were Total Workforce Solutions staffing company, Evolution Gym, Pita Pit restaurant, Wildcat Pizza, several small business in the downtown business district, and more than several local construction and contracting companies. The Elks Lodge was forced to downsize, they sold the upstairs to their own building, and moved into the basement of their building.
Even though the population of Dickinson has decreased, many businesses have closed and not been replaced by new or different businesses, many local companies have closed and not been replaced by new or different companies, there are many vacancies in residential and commercial properties, and there are fewer job advertisement listings, the people in Dickinson walk around talking about how things are taking off.
I looked at the North Dakota Job Services job listings for Dickinson today. I counted about thirty-two job listings posted in the month of April so far up until today, April 23. Of these thirty-two job listings for Dickinson, twelve of these job listings were for certified medical professionals like nurses, mammography technicians, and radiology technicians. This leaves twenty non-medical job listings for the month of April in Dickinson. Eight of these remaining jobs were low paying retail type jobs.
I then went and looked at the job listings for Dickinson, North Dakota on the website Indeed.com. On Indeed.com, there were roughly twice as many job listings, as what North Dakota Job Services had. There were roughly fifty to sixty job listings posted in the month of April so far, on Indeed.com. Approximately ten of these jobs were low paying such as customer service, retail, and food service workers. Approximately ten of these jobs were part time or seasonal. Approximately ten of these jobs were sales type jobs where an applicant is led to believe that there is potential to earn good pay, but it never works out that way. (You might not know what I mean about bullshit sales jobs unless you or your friends have done these jobs, where you never receive sales commissions.)
On Indeed.com, there were about fifteen jobs posted for Dickinson, North Dakota, in the month of April, that were good paying oil field, trades person, or professional type jobs. However, these fifteen good paying jobs, required specialized experience, knowledge, or education, such as a commercial driver’s license, degree as an engineer or engineering technician, or being an experienced heavy equipment operator.
My point in writing this blog post, is not just to explain why I am annoyed that people in Dickinson persist in repeating information that is not true about things in Dickinson taking off, I want to explain that this luring people here by telling them that there is a huge need for workers, is going to cause problems and hardship for people.
As I explained about the job listings posted for the month of April on Indeed.com, there were about fifteen jobs that were good paying jobs, but they required specialized experience, knowledge, or education. What are people in Dickinson trying to do, what are people in North Dakota trying to do, telling the world that there is a great need for workers, and high paying jobs, when this is not the case?
People are going to move to North Dakota, possibly bringing their families with them, because they heard about all of the jobs, and the high paying jobs. When they get here, and can’t get a job, or can only get a low paying job, what is going to happen, what are they going to do, what are they supposed to do? You don’t really care, or give a shit, do you? You just like talking every day about how things are really booming in Dickinson.
Almost one year ago, I moved from a house in a rural area on the north side of Dickinson, to an apartment in downtown Dickinson. I went from an area where nothing illegal or criminal ever happened, to where criminal activity is taking place all of the time, every day.
In the almost one year that I have lived in downtown Dickinson, I have seem drug dealing and drug use in the apartments where I live, the police coming and taking people away in handcuffs who are acting insane, vehicles having things stolen out of them, my truck got stolen, drunk or high people crashing through the fence into the canal in their vehicle three times, passed out drunk or high non-residents in the apartment stairwell, non-residents hiding, sneaking, and up to no good on the property several times. This probably doesn’t even cover everything, and this has been in less than one year.
There are some very nice, tidy, well kept yards and homes in downtown Dickinson that are owned by older retired people, blue collar trades people, business owners, and professional people. However, there are also some single family homes that have been divided into two or three rental units, and apartment buildings.
In the past, urban planners and property developers probably included apartment buildings in downtown Dickinson in order to fill a need, and in order to balance things out. There were some residents in Dickinson who did not earn enough money to buy a home, some of them young, some of them old, some of them just starting out, some of them retired, or families that were just getting started.
In Dickinson in the past, there was not much of a need or desire to separate lower income people from higher income people. In the past, people generally tried to behave and get along, whether they were upper class or lower class, because there were immediate consequences for anyone behaving badly for too long. In the past, people in Dickinson just did not persist in being disruptive to everyone, it just wasn’t allowed.
Now in downtown Dickinson, the rental houses that have been divided into several units, and the older apartment buildings, have unfortunately become a habitat for poor people who often have a combination of multiple personal problems which include unemployment, illegal drug use, drug dealing, alcoholism, mental illness, theft, burglary, robbery, assault, vandalism, and other criminal behavior.
I began this blog post by writing that in downtown Dickinson where I live, there is crime every day, all day long. About a month ago, I woke up at 2:00 a.m. and I looked out of my apartment window, there was a strange acting non-resident, who was shuffling around with tiny steps, going back and forth, back and forth repeatedly beside people’s vehicles in the parking lot.
I couldn’t tell what this person was trying to do or why they were behaving like this. I could tell that it was an older man, and I didn’t know if he had Alzheimers disease, dementia, or if he was under the influence of drugs. I watched him for several minutes, and then it appeared that although he was acting like he had something wrong with him, he was also looking to see what was in the front seat and the back seat of vehicles.
I telephoned the Dickinson Police, but by the time that the Police arrived, this man had wandered away. I gave a description to the Police, but they didn’t find him. When I had to leave for work at about 4:00 a.m., I was able to drive along following this man’s footprints in the snow, to the apartment where he lived a couple of blocks away.
When I got home that night, I asked my neighbors who live in the house next door, if they knew who this was. They said yes, they knew who this was, yesterday he had let himself into their back yard through their fence gate, and he went and urinated in their back yard behind a tree, he was drunk yesterday. The neighbor said that if her brother catches him, he is going to beat him. This is just an example of what happens throughout the day here.
What caused me to write this blog post today, is what happened today, Sunday, at 11:30 a.m. I walked out to my vehicle to go to the grocery story, and I started my vehicle. As I was sitting in my vehicle, a gold color station wagon drove past the apartment building where I live going very slowly. When I drove down the street, and turned the corner, this gold color station wagon had stopped, people got out, and began loading multiple garbage bags into another apartment building’s trash container.
I thought that this was a shitty, sleazy thing to do. In this gold color station wagon, I could see that they had bags and bags of garbage in their car, and that they were going to fill up this apartment building’s garbage container, and they don’t even live there.
I drove back around the city block, because I thought that these people were going to attempt to do this same thing at the apartment building where I live. Sure enough, there they were trying to load the garbage container at the building where I live, with the garbage bags from their vehicle. I drove up to them and I laid on the car horn, I told them that they can’t fill up our garbage container with their garbage from their car. I told them I was going to call the Police, to have a talk with them, and I drove away.
There are about twenty to twenty-five residents at the apartment building where I live. Myself, and other residents, sometimes have to wait for the garbage container to get emptied before we can take out our garbage from our apartments. Sometimes, someone who does not live here, drives up and fills up our garbage container. The garbage container is about 200 gallons in size, it is just barely adequate for this apartment building, it is not a dumpster.
I telephoned the Dickinson Police non-emergency dispatch number, and the Police dispatcher who was new, said that it was not illegal for someone to do this. This made me very angry, and I explained to the dispatcher that this is something that the tenants pay for, this is something that the apartment building owner pays for, yes it is illegal for people who do not live here, to fill up our garbage container with bags and bags of their garbage, so that the residents who live here can’t even use it.
The Police dispatcher agreed to have a Police Officer call me, I had the vehicle license plate number,make, and model. This made me even angrier, besides me catching the person who was probably the one responsible for causing our garbage container to always be full so that the apartment residents can’t even use it, the Police were possibly going to say that there was nothing that they could do about this.
Herein lies a problem which I have noticed for the past year. If you live in house, and there is someone walking around on your property, hiding behind a garage on your property, parked in a car on your property, passed out on your property, or acting strange around your vehicles on your property at 2:00 a.m., the Police would respond to a call about this with the understanding that this was trespassing or criminal mischief. However, when this same thing happens at an apartment where there are about twenty to twenty-five residents, even if you explain to the Police that this person that you called them about does not live here, the Police somewhat act like you have less of a right to complain, and the other person who is not a resident of the premises, has somewhat of right to be there. The Police Officers, are somewhat more in agreement with the caller’s complaint, than the Police dispatcher sometimes.
In other words, if you live in an apartment building in Dickinson, even though it is privately owned property, which you pay rent to live in, the Police and other people, kind of have the impression that it is a public parking lot, a public garbage container, a public hallway, or a public stairwell.
I believe that this is one of the sources of the criminal problems in downtown Dickinson. Because of these private apartment building properties, being looked at by the Police and other people, as public places, you get this 24 hour, 7 days a week, people wandering through, looking for the opportunity to sell illegal drugs, buy illegal drugs, steal from cars, commit burglary, commit robbery, commit vandalism, or hang out waiting for opportunities to commit crimes.
I wish that the Police in Dickinson, and the residents in downtown Dickinson, would begin to see and re-consider, that the permissive attitude of allowing people to roam around and wander through private property and private property that has a common area, that this is allowing and creating the opportunity for crime to happen.
For the past month I have been watching YouTube videos created by two young hippies named Jason a.k.a. VeeTwoEye, and Stephi Lee.
I like Jason and Stephi, they each make their own videos, but they went on a trip together to southeast Asia, and they made many videos of themselves having a good time together.
For as much as they did, climbing trees, rocks, temples, ruins, hiking through rivers and forests, playing with monkeys, turtles, crabs, and goats, traveling to island after island, playing on the beach, it was almost like half the scenes in a James Bond movie.
I took one of Jason’s videos, and one of Stephi’s videos, combined them, and added James Bond movie music. I think that it turned out really well, though I didn’t spend a lot of time on it, to make this three minute video:
They could have done this with all of their videos, and people would have liked them, I think.
On Saturday April 14, 2018, an armed robbery was allegedly committed in Dickinson, North Dakota at an apartment on the 400 block of East 2nd Street. Four suspects entered an apartment with firearms, and they took cash and marijuana from three occupants.
You can read more about this alleged armed robbery in the Dickinson Press newspaper online, or you can watch North Dakota television news reports online. Three of the suspects were ages 18 to 19, so the Dickinson Police Department released their names and Police arrest photographs. This is the photo that I used for this blog post headline.
I have been writing blog posts about criminal people moving to Dickinson from bad neighborhoods in large cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, and Spokane. I am against news services, energy industry representatives, and North Dakota Job Services representatives making announcements that “North Dakota needs many, many workers for high paying jobs here in North Dakota”, because they are creating a problem.
Poor, unemployed people, who have very little or no job skills, very little or no work experience, who have been making money in the poor inner cities by stealing and dealing drugs, hear that North Dakota needs workers for high paying jobs, so they come to Dickinson.
They did not know, that companies in Dickinson might be able to hire someone with a commercial driver’s license, an experienced welder, electrician, plumber, heavy equipment operator, certified mechanic, or experienced oil field worker, but not someone with no job experience from the inner city. With no job experience, they would be even less likely to get hired if they had a criminal record, or did not graduate from high school.
The people who arrive in Dickinson from poor inner cities with very little or no job skills, very little or no work experience, possibly a criminal record, possibly without a high school diploma, with the expectation of getting a high paying job like they heard about or saw on TV, they came a long way to get here, and they can’t just turn around and go home when they can’t get a job. They see that some people have money and are making money from the expensive trucks that they drive, their snow mobiles, their four wheelers, and the RVs parked in their yards.
They can’t get a job, have difficulty getting a job, or see that they can only get a low paying job in fast food or retail. They need money, and the way that they know how to get money or get what they want, is to deal drugs, steal, and commit crimes.
The three adults whose names the Dickinson Police Department released, I began doing a Google search to try to find out where these alleged armed robbers came from. I didn’t get very far, before I found a YouTube video, and a YouTube channel, called the Gorilla Gang, where these three individuals had uploaded videos that they had made. Here is one of their videos from YouTube:
You can watch a few other YouTube videos that they made, on the Gorilla Gang channel.
Today when I typed in “YouTube” on my Google search browser, and then clicked on the YouTube site, I saw about thirty suggested videos from YouTube. The first video to catch my attention, was from a young hippie girl named Stephi Lee, where she was crying because she had gotten into a car accident.
In the past, I have watched about twenty YouTube videos from Stephi Lee. I like her, she is cute, I like some of her videos, but she also makes me mad. It was good that Stephi made four of five videos explaining her situation, or more people would hate her, and I would hate her more.
At first, I saw that she was very cute, and I thought that she was very attractive. Why she was wearing her hair in dread locks, getting so many tattoos, living like a hippie, sleeping in her car, and not working at a job, were questions that I had, and I thought that she was throwing her life away, wasting her life, being lazy, and acting stupid.
As Stephi explained her life in her videos, I could more understand why Stephi was the way that she was, and I could see more of why she was doing what she was doing.
Several weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about watching Stephi Lee videos, where I explained that she had mutism until the fourth grade, only speaking to some members of her family. Her mother died when she was 11 years old. That she was born with cystic fibrosis, where she only has about 45% lung capacity, and it causes her difficulty every day, even just in speaking. Plus more problems besides that, that I didn’t even want to repeat, because she has so many problems.
Women don’t think that men should ever say this, especially women with tattoos, but I began to have more patience and tolerance with Stephi, when she was showing and explaining her twenty tattoos. I was thinking that she was so pretty, why would she ruin herself with so many tattoos? Or, when she was showing and explaining that she didn’t shave her arm pits, legs, or pubic area, I was wondering if she wasn’t somehow trying to alienate people, and drive people away.
As I watched more and more of Stephi’s videos, and I learned more about her, being aware of her health problems, tattoos, hairy arm pits, living in her car, and watching the things that she was doing, I liked her personality, I liked some of the things that she was doing, but I sometimes came to the conclusion that overall what she was doing, was being defiant.
I came to believe and feel that Stephi, in the way that she lived and the things that she did, she was being defiant, and in a way trying to alienate people, drive people away, and push people away. I believed that if she chose to be more normal, she could have a job, a home, a boyfriend, a husband, not be alone, be safe, and be comfortable.
I suppose that I am missing the point, Stephi doesn’t want to be normal. But can you, or should you, feel sorry for people who practically do everything that they can, to ensure that they are going to have problems? To move far away from home where they do not know anyone, and then be alone and not have anyone to help them. To want to meet and associate with counter culture people who do not have jobs or money, and then not know anyone who can help them with a job or money. To want to spend time with boys that do not have a job and live at home with their parents, and then not have a man to rely on when they need help. To avoid and make fun of people who have a steady job and a place to live, but then in an emergency turn to these people as the only ones who are able to provide any real help.
For the past month, I have watched YouTube videos from various women, who are having problems. They have a problem with their motor home breaking down, some piece of equipment not working, someone bothering them during the night, not having a place to stay, not having a job, needing money, not knowing what to do, going to therapy….and getting a new tattoo.
I thought about these women, and then I realized something. For the past 6,000 years or so, how this was handled, was women had husbands. Here is how this works, in return for sex, and some domestic work, men will build a shelter, provide protection, and find a way to obtain food and other things that they need.
For about 6,000 years or so, women have not liked their husbands. Their husbands were too ugly, too fat, too short, too smelly, too stupid, too controlling, and they didn’t provide as much as they wanted. But what were women going to do, what else could they do?
In the past 50 years in the United States, women have gotten it into their heads more and more, that they don’t need a man, they can have their own job, their own money, and their own home. However, whether women realize it or not, when they are making YouTube videos where they don’t have a job, they don’t have any money, they don’t have anywhere to stay, they don’t have anyone to help them, and they are frightened, the solution to this problem has been around for 6,000 years or so.
Here is Stephi Lee’s YouTube video after she got into a car accident with the car that she lives in, while on the way to hospital when she was crying and coughing up blood:
I felt so bad for Stephi, that I was thinking about sending her some money, like $100, and I believed that many of her other viewers were going to do the same thing. I saw that this particular video has 57,000 views, and that she received about 1,000 comments to this video from people offering her help in different ways.
I would think that it was good, if people and her viewers helped Stephi get back on her feet. Stephi has a Patreon account where some viewers have signed up to contribute money to her every month. What I don’t think would be good, would be for well meaning people to contribute so much money, that she received a windfall from this. The reason why is, because I believe if a person does so many things to get themselves into a position where they are bound to have problems, like choosing to not associate with people who have jobs, earn a living, have a place to stay, and can help you, don’t reward people for getting themselves into a position where they have problems.
I want to give everyone in the United States current and correct information on what employment and living in Dickinson, North Dakota is like, so that people do not experience hardship or make a mistake in coming here.
In April, some news services, energy industry representatives, and North Dakota Job Service representatives made announcements stating that there is a great need for workers in North Dakota. From what I see, this is not true, and I want to explain how things really are.
For unskilled, low skilled, and non able-bodied workers, there are a few job openings that come up in fast food, convenience store, and retail stores. These jobs are not very high paying jobs.
You might be asking or saying, why can’t I work in the oil field, or I plan on working in the oil field. I will explain about the oil field in a minute.
For unskilled or low skilled workers that are able-bodied, there are a few job openings for construction laborers beginning in the Spring, and these jobs usually last through the Fall. Once it becomes Winter in North Dakota, many construction companies shut down and lay off workers. The way that the unemployment compensation eligibility formulas are designed in North Dakota, if you do not work in the Winter months, and have high income in the Summer months, you very likely will be determined to not be eligible to receive unemployment compensation during a Winter lay off.
Working In The Oil Field
I am going to try to explain some misconceptions about working in the oil field, which everyone in the United States should know about. This is going to be pretty thorough and detailed, because I want to explain once and for all, not just how things really are in the oil field, but why things are this way, so that people quit falling for lies and bullshit that are not true.
Working For An Oil Company. In North Dakota, some of the oil companies that do business here are Continental, Marathon, Whiting, Hess, and Tesoro. One of the most common jobs for these oil companies is called “pumper”. A pumper will be assigned a company pick up truck, and about twenty oil field locations, more or less.
The pumper’s job each day, is to drive to each oil field location, observe the condition of the site, look for any leaks in pumps, piping, or tanks, inspect the pump, inspect the tanks, and record information such as pressures, flow rates, and tank levels.
What the oil companies are looking for in a pumper, is someone who is completely reliable, and completely trustworthy. They must very rarely ever call in sick, and almost never be late. They must have an almost completely perfect driving record, with no accidents and no DUIs. They must have an employment history that shows steady, long term employment with other companies, as evidence of reliability and trustworthiness.
Other qualifications that a pumper must have, is a demonstrateable knowledge of mechanics, controls, instrumentation, and equipment. Acceptable proof of aptitude would be employment history working as a heavy equipment mechanic, working in automation or controls, or previous work history in the oil field installing and maintaining pump jacks, working on a drill rig, a work over rig, or fracturing.
Most of the oil company pumpers are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, and worked for more than five years in the oil field before they ever became a pumper.
Working for Oil Refineries, Oil Pipelines, and Gas Pipelines. In North Dakota, some of the companies that own and operate oil refineries and pipelines are Tesoro, Plains All American, and Dakota Access Pipeline. Just like the oil companies, the refinery and pipeline owners and operators are looking for people that are absolutely reliable and absolutely trustworthy.
What I did not explain about the oil companies, which also applies to the refineries and pipeline owners, is that they just will not and can not hire personnel who are unqualified or questionable in any way. There are too many people’s lives at stake, too much money at risk, too much environmental damage possible, and too much liability to hire or allow anyone to work who is questionable in any way.
They must exclude from employment, people with DUIs, people with criminal charges, people with drug charges, people with domestic abuse charges, people with mental illness, people with poor work histories, or people with vehicle accidents. Though they will not come out and say it, they try to screen out people who have extreme views whether social, religious, or political, people with bad tempers, people with depression or bi-polar, people who are too young or too old.
I wanted to describe in detail who the oil companies, refineries, and pipeline owners hire, so that people would not mistakenly believe that they could just move to North Dakota and get a job with an oil company, without understanding how selective and strict these companies are in hiring.
Working for Drilling, Work Over, and Casing Companies. In North Dakota, some of the companies that operate oil drilling rigs, workover rigs, and perform casing installation are Nabors, Patterson, H&P, Key, Big Sky, and Wyoming Casing. Unlike the oil companies, refineries, and pipeline owner companies, who are concerned primarily with employees being completely reliable and completely trustworthy, the drilling, work over, and casing companies are primarily concerned with hiring people that can physically handle the work.
The drilling, work over, and casing companies perform the most dangerous and most physically demanding work. There are very few people who are physically capable of doing these jobs, and very few people who would be willing to do these jobs because they are so difficult and dangerous.
On an oil drilling rig, the floor hands on the drilling platform typically have to work a twelve hour shift each day, for fourteen days in a row, then they receive seven days off. During each twelve hour shift on the drill rig platform, the floor hands may be required to continuously stand at the drill pipe and make connections, they may be required to continually climb up and down fifty stair steps carrying heavy tools and equipment that weigh 100 lbs or more, they may be required to climb the twelve story tall drill derek. The weather could be 90 degrees Fahrenheit, or it could be -40 degrees Fahrenheit with wind chill.
On a drill rig, there is no faking work, pretending to work, slacking off, getting out of work, or getting someone else to do your work for you. It is nothing but work, all the time, the drilling has to proceed non-stop. If you have any kind of physical defect or weakness such as a bad foot, bad ankle, bad knee, bad hip, bad back, bad shoulder, or are weak, out of shape, or get tired, you will be worked to failure to where you can not physically continue and that is the end of your job.
The drilling, work over, and casing companies do not want to waste time hiring anyone that they can already tell are not going to be physically able to do the work. They do not want to waste time and money in hiring and training the wrong people, who will not be able to last one day or one week on the job. What these companies are looking for, and who they screen out, they are not going to come out and say it because they don’t want any legal trouble, but I will explain it.
These companies are looking for men who are between the ages of twenty to thirty years old, who have a background in farming, construction, or military field duty, who are accustomed to harsh outdoor conditions, dangerous work conditions, and hard physical work. Any person who appears to be physically week, lethargic, lacking energy, lacking stamina, severely overweight, underweight, too physically small, too old, or appears to be a female, these companies don’t even want to waste their time considering these people for employment, because they have found again, and again, and again that any person who has physical weakness is just not going to be able to do the work.
The work over rig companies sometimes have employees work 14 to 16 hours per day. The casing companies sometimes have employees work up to 30 hours continuously, or until the job is completed.
Working for Directional Drilling, Hydraulic Fracturing, and Wireline Companies. Some of the directional drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and wireline companies that operate in North Dakota are Halliburton, BJ Services, and Keane. These companies seek to hire people who are reliable and trustworthy like the oil companies do, but are just slightly less strict, and they seek to hire people who are physically capable of doing hard work like the drilling companies, but they are slightly less demanding.
Directional drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and wireline companies are looking for employees who have almost perfect driving records, with no accidents, and no DUIs. They want employees who have a commercial driver’s license. These companies may be unwilling or unable to hire people with criminal records, especially with theft or assault charges.
They are looking for employees with a work history showing reliability, and having performed work in farming, construction, heavy equipment, military trades classification, or military field duty. They want people who are accustomed to working in harsh outdoor conditions, dangerous work conditions, working around heavy equipment, performing hard labor, and working long hours.
These companies will not come out and tell you who they screen out, because they do not want any legal problems, but these companies do not want to waste time and money hiring and training people who are not going to be able to physically do the work, who will only last one day or one week on the job. Typically, who they might screen out would be people who appear to be physically weak, lethargic, lacking energy, lack stamina, severely overweight, under weight, too old, erratic, unbalanced, or have bad judgement. They will hire women who meet their hiring requirements.
Working for Oil Field Service Companies. Some of the oil field service companies who operate in North Dakota are GE Lufkin, Weatherford, Stallion, Titan, Steier, SM Fencing, Bob’s. These companies have more flexibility in hiring. They are still looking for people with very clean driving records, no accidents, no DUIs, and a commercial driver’s license, but they are sometime willing to overlook a fault in one area, by an applicant having a recognized specialty in another area, such as being a certified mechanic, certified welder, certified welding inspector, certified crane operator, or journeyman electrician.
Oil field service companies are sometimes willing to hire one inexperienced younger worker at a time, if this worker appears to have good judgement, good common sense, a positive attitude, willingness to listen and follow instructions, if this worker can be placed with an older experienced worker.
Oil field service companies are sometime willing to hire older experienced oil field workers who have made a mistake, had an accident, had an injury, suffered an illness, or have a physical disability which can be accommodated.
Even though oil field service companies have more flexibility in hiring, they are still looking for people who have a background in farming, construction, or military field duty. People who are accustomed to working in harsh outdoor conditions, dangerous conditions, performing physical labor, working around equipment, operating equipment, and working long hours.
Oil field service companies are the easiest entry point into gaining work experience in the oil industry, but even so, news organizations and the oil industry have misled people across the United States into believing that entry into a high paying oil field job is as easy as working at McDonalds one day, then working for an oil company the next day.
If this were true, all of the experienced oil field service company workers who are paid at the mid-level, would go get a “high paying” oil company job tomorrow. Why would experienced oil field service company workers continue to work at mid-level pay for years and years, if it was so easy for anyone to get a high paying job for an oil company?
Working for Construction Companies in Dickinson. Some of the construction companies in Dickinson are Winn Construction, Baranko Brothers, Northern Improvement, and Tooz Construction. These construction companies would like to hire people with clean driving records and commercial driver’s licenses, but they will hire experienced construction workers who do not have a driver’s license. The experience that they are looking for is experience in operating heavy equipment such as loaders, dozer, excavator, skid steer, boom truck, lull, or experience in concrete form work, concrete finishing, steel building erection, and paving.
If you do not have prior work experience in construction, doing some of the work that I have described above, do not be mis-led by news services or North Dakota Job Service into believing that you can come to Dickinson and easily get a job in construction. The construction companies can sometimes hire people with not very much job experience to work as laborers, but it is impractical and undesirable for construction companies to hire more than just a few inexperienced workers at one time.
Summary for Working in Dickinson, North Dakota. I want for everyone in the United States to know and understand that oil companies are very strict and demanding with their background and experience requirements in hiring, drilling companies are very strict and demanding with their physical strength and endurance requirements in hiring, and oil field service companies try to hire people with relevant work experience.
There are some job openings with construction companies for low skilled laborers, but these jobs usually only last from April through October, seven months, and that you will likely not be eligible to receive unemployment compensation during a Winter lay-off.
There are some job openings in fast food, convenience stores, and retail stores, but these jobs are not high paying.
When news services, energy industry representatives, and North Dakota Job Service representatives make announcement that many workers are needed in North Dakota, I am skeptical and I don’t believe this. Many people that I know who are intelligent and skilled, have had to leave North Dakota in the past several years because they have not been able to find employment. Also, I know people who are currently living in Dickinson, who are unable to find employment.
I believe that business people in North Dakota are trying to lure people to North Dakota using false information, so that they can grow the economy, fill in vacancies in housing, and drop the wage rate that employers have to pay by creating a surplus of workers.
I was getting ready to update a blog post that I wrote several years ago titled “Night Life In Dickinson, North Dakota”, where I listed and described the bars and restaurants in Dickinson. In addition to updating this list, I was going to write a short advisement about people behaving badly in restaurants, in Dickinson. That updated blog post will not be a good place for me to do a great deal of explaining about people behaving badly in restaurants, so I am going to explain this now, in this blog post.
When I grew up in the 1970s in the United States, there was an upper class, upper middle class, middle class, lower middle class, and lower class in society. At that time, people in general had the belief and expectation that their children could do better in life than they did, all it took was getting an education, hard work, the right marriage, etcetera.
Women and mothers in particular, believed that their children should aspire to rising to the next higher social class. Women and mothers believed in instructing their children, and sometimes their husbands, proper behavior, manners, and etiquette so that they would more easily fit into the next higher social class, or at least be respectable and not embarrass themselves.
Other writers have written in the past, that manners are what makes society run smoothly. Or, that manners are not about snobbery, but about making other people comfortable. If you look at it this way, which I do, in polite company, you do not do or say anything that would make other people uncomfortable.
Therefore, you wouldn’t ask someone how much money they make, how much money they have, pry into their religious or political beliefs, make controversial religious or political statements which might possibly offend someone, talk about sex, bodily functions, or use foul, crude, vulgar, lewd, or rude language. Anyone belonging to the middle class, was expected to know this, and follow these rules, when in polite company, such as when mothers, fathers, and children are gathered together.
In order to not just pick on Dickinson, North Dakota, I will give an example of middle class rules of conduct not being followed when I was living in Florida. My fourth job out of college working as an engineer, I went to work for a newly formed engineering and construction company in Florida. The owner of the company came from a very well known family that was successful in both business and politics.
This engineering and construction company took its name from the company owner, who was a registered professional engineer, who graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in mechanical engineering like I did. The other company partners were registered professional engineers, one of them an electrical engineer, the other had a degree in both civil and mechanical engineering.
The construction manager who got me hired at this company as a superintendent, was a mechanical engineer in his fifties who had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, who had spent most of his career in power plant construction, sometimes overseas. I was happy to be working with so many mechanical engineers, and other engineers who had graduated from the University of Florida.
This company sometimes held a half day, quarterly meeting for the field management personnel at a very nice hotel conference room on Lido Beach, which is on the Gulf of Mexico at Sarasota, Florida. At this particular meeting, there was the electrical engineering partner, the mechanical engineer construction manager, several superintendents who were engineers, two superintendents who were not engineers, several construction coordinators, two administrative assistant ladies, and one construction foreman who was being considered for superintendent, who was named Chris.
Down the street from the hotel on Lido Beach, was a fairly famous area called St. Armands Circle, which had several fine dining restaurants, and high end boutiques, clothing, jewelry, and specialty stores. As the half day, quarterly meeting was drawing to a close, one of the construction coordinators was successfully talking the engineering partner into paying for lunch on St. Armands Circle. One of the administrative assistant ladies, quickly called the best and most famous restaurant on the circle, the Columbia, to make reservations.
To describe what the Columbia restaurant is, there are three of them in Florida, one in Tampa, one in Sarasota, and one in St. Augustine, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
The original Columbia Restaurant, located in the historic Ybor City neighborhood in Tampa, is the oldest continuously operated restaurant in Florida, and the oldest Spanish restaurant in the United States, and one of the largest Spanish restaurants in the world with 1,700 seats in 15 dining rooms taking up 52,000 square feet over an entire city block. Founded in 1905, the landmark is still owned by the Hernandez/Gonzmart family and serves Spanish and Cuban cuisine.
Myself, the construction manager, the other engineers, and one of the non engineer superintendents, were uncomfortable about what was probably going to happen, but we went to the Columbia restaurant with the company field management personnel. Right away, the construction coordinators, administrative assistant ladies, non engineer superintendents, and the foreman who was up for promotion, all began drinking alcohol, and rather quickly too, because someone else was paying for it.
Mid way through lunch, our group of twelve company personnel, had become way too loud for this fine dining restaurant. Primarily, the two construction coordinators, the two administrative assistant ladies, one superintendent, and Chris who was up for promotion, had all quickly gotten drunk, were too loud, and were becoming obnoxious.
I was embarrassed, and I knew that our group was getting attention from the other patrons for being too loud and too obnoxious, spoiling other patrons’ quiet conversations, and being completely ignorant and oblivious to the fact that this was one of the oldest and most prestigious restaurants in Florida.
This was foreman Chris’ big chance to make an impression, as the conversation turned to college football, and Chris had just the right thing to say about Florida State University, so he had to be sure to yell it very loudly, several times, “Hey, hey, hey!…Those Semen Holes! Those Semen Holes!…Wait, those Semen Holes!”
At that moment, several of us got up, and said we have got to go, you take care now, have a nice rest of your day. I can’t imagine what the other families in the Columbia restaurant at that time did. I can’t imagine what someone’s wife who was eating at that moment, I can’t imagine what her reaction might have been.
On the following Monday, the restaurant manager or the restaurant owner family, that had operated the restaurant since 1905, telephoned the company owner and complained about his employees’ very rude and inappropriate behavior at the restaurant, which probably caused other patrons to leave. And the patrons who complained to the restaurant manager at the time, they demanded to know who these rude obnoxious people were, and these angry restaurant patrons called the company owner and complained about his employees’ behavior too. This was a big embarrassment to the company owner, whose company bore his family name.
Of the possibly 50,000 restaurants in Florida, the three Columbia restaurants in Sarasota, Tampa, and St. Augustine have the oldest and best reputation for fine dining, except for possibly Berns Steakhouse in Tampa, which opened in 1956. Why the construction coordinator, and the administrative assistant ladies wanted to go to the Columbia restaurant, I don’t know. Maybe because they had heard about it being famous, maybe because they had heard that the food was good, maybe because this was a chance to eat there and have someone else pay for it.
I couldn’t believe that a normal adult with any common sense, would not realize that this was a time to be on good behavior. I am writing about this incident to show that some people, for some reason, misbehave when they are at a fine dining restaurant. Maybe they think that this is a good opportunity to cause annoyance to wealthy people, to disturb them, to irritate them, to show disrespect to them, to ruin their dinner, to cause them to want to leave the restaurant. Or, it is like trying to force people to have interaction or involvement with you, who do not want anything to do with you, even if that interaction consists of patrons asking you to please stop using profanity, patrons getting into an argument with you, or management asking you to leave.
In Dickinson, North Dakota, I have often seen this happen at ordinary bars and restaurants, but sometimes in a more severe way, where myself or the staff have had to telephone the police. Construction workers, oil field workers, criminals, and drug addicts, enter a bar or restaurant in Dickinson, and begin behaving inappropriately, rude, insulting, obnoxious, offensive, or threatening. They are angry, upset, alone, depressed, mentally ill, intoxicated, or high, and walking into a bar or restaurant gives them the opportunity to approach people, and force people to either interact with them or leave, even if the interaction that they are forcing leads to arguing, threats, or fighting.
Today, I received a racist comment to one of my blog posts, like I sometimes do. I let this comment go through, because I censor about 75% of this particular reader’s comments, and this comment was not that bad, in comparison to what they sometimes write.
This got me thinking about a true story that I want to tell, about racism as a learned behavior.
After I graduated from college in the mid 1990s, I returned to live at my parents’ home on the east coast of Florida. On Friday and Saturday night, I would go out to bars on the beach to try to pick up women. There were many attractive and beautiful young women from all over the United States who would come to visit Florida, and they wanted to meet men, so it was easy to approach women in bars and nightclubs, they wanted you to.
At a nightclub, I met a young lady who was about my age, who I will call “Nancy”. I became friends with Nancy. Nancy was a lesbian, but she was not a male hating lesbian, she liked men.
Nancy had grown up in southwest Florida, in a very affluent community, where there were hardly any black people. South Florida tends to be politically liberal, and Nancy was a lesbian, so she was politically liberal, equal rights, LGBT rights, civil rights, affirmative action, non-discrimination.
In college Nancy majored in psychology, so she had many times studied the subject of racism, prejudice, discrimination, bias, favoritism, equality, the origins of people’s beliefs, cultural traditions, stereotypes, social norms, and everything related to why people believe or behave a certain way.
After Nancy graduated from college, she became employed in public health care in Florida. One of Nancy’s job duties, was to perform home visits and assessments with clients who lived in public housing. Three or four days per week, Nancy would drive her own personal vehicle to the public housing projects which were overwhelmingly and predominantly inhabited by black people.
When Nancy started her job with public health care in Florida, she was probably the least racist person you would find. She was idealistic, and she wanted to help people, especially poor, disadvantaged, discriminated against black people.
As a blond haired, blue eyed, attractive young lady, she was given a hard time by the young black males that loitered around outside of the public housing projects, when she went to perform her in-home client assessments. She felt that she would be O.K., because she was there to help these people. She felt that she would have less trouble, as the residents came to know her and recognize her.
The residents at the predominantly black public housing projects did begin to recognize Nancy and her vehicle. A few months after starting her job, Nancy was leaving a gay bar one night downtown with a female friend, when a young black man stepped out of the alley, and broke Nancy’s jaw, knocking her out, in order to then pick up her purse and jog away.
Nancy was knocked out and didn’t know exactly what had happened to her immediately after being mugged. Her female friend and other witnesses had to tell her what happened. After having her broken jaw wired shut, and while she was recovering, Nancy began to recall what had happened, and who it might have been that did this to her.
Nancy felt that she was targeted by one of the young black men who loitered outside of the public housing projects when she went there each week to perform her client assessments. She believed that he had spotted her vehicle parked outside of the gay bar, and that he felt that she would be an easy target to knock out and rob.
After Nancy recovered, and her jaw had healed, this same exact thing happened to her again outside of a bar at night about less than one year later. Nancy was blond, blue eyed, about 5′-5″, 120 lbs, grew up in a totally non-violent affluent area, a lesbian accompanied only by another girl similar to her, and she was an easily recognizable, easy target for the young black men who lived in public housing, to just run up on, knock her out, and jog away with her purse. Nancy’s jaw was broken for a second time.
About one year after this second incident had happened, Nancy was either going to or coming from an in-home assessment in the public housing projects, when she stopped at the nearest convenience store to buy a drink. The young black men that were loitering around this convenience store knew that she worked for the public health care, because she had been coming to the public housing projects for a couple of years now.
When Nancy got back into her car, her briefcase was missing from the back seat, one of the young black men had taken her briefcase when she went inside the convenience store. Her briefcase had two case files. Each of the case files had a lot of personal information on two different clients, but one case file had a lot of financial information about a juvenile client, who was due to receive a large amount of money from a settlement when he turned 18 years of age. This was really horrible that this young man’s file was stolen and this information could get out in the public housing project.
Nancy did not know if she was going to be fired or not when she was telling me this. The public health care company that she worked for had to have a meeting about it to decide what they were going to do.
Nancy said that after trying to help these people for two years, and having her jaw broken twice, being mugged, and having her briefcase stolen out of the back of her car, she now hated black people.
To be scholarly about this, if Nancy had been performing in-home assessments at a public housing project that was predominantly Native American, she might have been mugged by a Native American public housing resident who recognized her as an easy target.
Or, if Nancy had been performing in-home assessments at a public housing project that was predominantly Syrian Refugees, she might have been mugged by a Syrian Refugee public housing resident who recognized her as an easy target.
It is a common thing, for people to attack or rob someone that they do know, feeling that they are a safer target than someone that they know nothing about.
When I was in my mid 30s, and working as a caregiver for terminally ill adults and later doing self employed contracting work, I noticed something strange about women.
Married women who had everything that they wanted, were often very welcoming and nice to me, whereas single women who were struggling, ran from me like they were frightened.
As a typical example, when I was hired by a housewife to do some work at her home, when I arrived on time in the morning, she was happy to see me. She was happy to see my work truck with all of the ladders on its ladder rack, all of my tool boxes in the truck bed, and my large flat bed equipment trailer.
Though my work boots were scuffed, and my jeans had some paint marks on them, I was clean, not dirty, and I didn’t smell. I didn’t play loud music, I didn’t yell, I didn’t use bad language, I didn’t bring anyone questionable with me, I didn’t have many people calling me on the telephone, or anyone stopping by. The housewives were happy with my work, that I did what I said I was going to do, for the price that I said, and that I cleaned everything up when I was done.
The married women that I worked for, who had nice large homes, and vacation homes, they kept my phone number, and would call me from time to time. They would also say hello to me when they saw me in town and in stores.
On the other hand, when I got done working for a nice housewife, and I went to the grocery store in my work truck, young single women would run from me and my truck like I was going to get them. Inside the grocery store, when I was merely shopping for food, young single women would try to avoid me, because they were certain that I was going to do something to them that they wouldn’t like.
The difference in women’s behavior was so blatant, that I was interested to know what was going on in their minds. After thinking about it for quite a while, it came down to the Chicken and the Egg question, which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Were the women who were polite, friendly, and welcoming to me, were they this way because they had everything that they wanted, or, or, did these women have everything that they wanted because they were polite, friendly, and welcoming with people?
I really started to believe, that the women who were polite, friendly, and welcoming with me, were probably like this for most of their lives. When they were young, it wouldn’t be surprising that men would want a woman like this to be his wife, they were so pleasant and agreeable. A woman like this, would probably have the interest of many men, and she would be able to choose the one that she thought would be the best or most successful.
Conversely, the single women who ran from me in parking lots because I drove a work truck and was wearing construction worker clothes, believing that I was going to rape them, or tried to avoid me while shopping because they believed that I was going to do something to them that they wouldn’t like, these women were quick to find fault with anyone, and they rubbed people the wrong way.
One type of woman sees a man, and she thinks of what he might be good at, what work that she might get him to do for her. Another type of woman sees a man, and she thinks that he is going to follow her home, tie her up, and rape her.
One type of woman could get a boyfriend in five minutes by being friendly and positive, whereas some women can’t get a boyfriend in five years because they are so negative and fault finding.
But I think that there is a third aspect to all of this. The married women that I worked for that had everything that they wanted, a large home, and a vacation home, who were very friendly with me, yes I can see why they were able to get a good husband, they were friendly, positive, and agreeable. However, when I thought about it some more, they might be the reason why their husband was successful. It wasn’t just that they were able to pick a husband that was most likely to be successful, they might have been one of the reasons why their husband was successful.
The friendly, welcoming, positive wives, they were encouraging, they had faith in you. They were not negative, doubtful, or fault finding. I wanted to do a good job for them, I wanted them to be pleased, I didn’t want to let them down. I can imagine that their husbands felt the same way.
Can you imagine having a wife that was encouraging, supportive, positive, who believed in you, who didn’t say and do mean things to you? Wouldn’t it be easier to go to work in the morning, wouldn’t you want to do better?
The single women, that think, talk, and act like every man that they encounter is dirty, bad, and has bad intentions towards them, they don’t care that they are creating a bad impression with men. These women are often struggling in just about every aspect of their lives, not advancing in employment, not making much money, being forced to live in low rent housing, only being able to afford a cheap automobile, struggling financially, not being invited to participate socially, very few social contacts. They don’t realize that their struggles originate with them finding fault with everyone else, particularly men, and that they are alienating most people, especially men.
Today I received a telephone call from a lady who lives in a different state, asking me if I was available to do some work for her. At first, I only vaguely remembered who she was, but as we talked for a few minutes I began to remember very clearly who she was.
The last time that I had spoken to her was about two years ago. At that time I had explained to her that I was working in North Dakota. She remembered me telling her that, but she hadn’t known whether I had returned yet.
I asked her what was going on with her, and she told me that her husband had died about a year ago, and things have just been insane, that I wouldn’t believe it. I thought to myself, no, I probably would believe it, I probably could have even predicted it, because I have seen it before.
Besides the contracting work that I have sometimes done for elderly people, which allowed the opportunity for elderly people to tell me about themselves and their lives, I have in the past also been a caregiver for terminally ill patients. When people who are elderly begin to have failing health, even elderly people who own just a home and a vehicle, there are some strange plots and schemes which begin to unfold.
In this blog post I can’t cover everything that happens when an elderly spouse dies, but telling what happened to this woman, describes many of the things that do happen.
This woman, who I will call “Jean”, this was her first marriage, and it was her husband’s second marriage. Her husband, who I will call “Tom”, he had an adult daughter who was the same age as his wife, Jean. Though Jean had been married to her husband Tom for thirty years, because she was so much younger than her husband, and because of his previous marriage, there were other people that felt they had a right of precedence over his wife Jean in inheriting, receiving, or even keeping her husband’s property.
Prior to Tom’s health failing, representatives of the Church that Tom had once belonged to, would come visit him at his house, trying to ask Tom to reconcile with the Church. Tom would explain to the representatives of the Church, the events that had made him decide to be done with the Church once and for all, back when he was a teenager.
As Tom and his wife Jean became older, they found that they had to be more forceful with the Church representatives that would come visit them at their home, telling them to please leave us alone, we have no desire to be involved with an organized Church and an organized religion, please do not come back.
As Tom’s health became very bad, and his wife Jean was struggling with Tom and her own health problems, the Church stepped up its efforts to try to reclaim Tom. What Tom and Jean suspected, was that among other things, what the Church wanted was Tom’s large farm and ranch property outside of town. Even though both Tom and Jean had told the Church representatives to leave them alone and not come back, they kept having Church representatives “accidentally” showing up at the wrong address and asking for directions, fairly frequently.
Jean suspected that the Church was hoping and trying to catch her husband Tom by himself, when she was away dong errands, so that they could try some type of tactics or ploy to get Tom to agree to transfer the farm and ranch property to the Church. Jean came home one day to find several very attractive, and attractively dressed Church women knocking on her door trying to get her husband Tom to let them in, even though by this time, the Church had been told again, and again, and again to not come back.
This Church felt that they had more of a right to inherit and receive Tom’s property than his wife did, after all, this was his second wife, and she was not even a member of this Church. I believe that Jean told me that shortly before her husband Tom’s death, they went ahead and gave to the Church, a copy of a legal document showing that long ago Tom had placed the farm and ranch property in a Trust for Tom’s daughter, so that the Church would leave them alone, and quit trying to obtain the farm and ranch from them.
Jean told me that when her husband Tom’s health began to fail, that began the long drawn out legal battle with Tom’s daughter. Tom’s daughter then also began trying to use and make opportunities to take property away from Tom and Jean’s home. Jean and Tom had been married for thirty years. Because Tom was ill, Jean did not object to Tom’s daughter visiting him at their home. However, during these visits which were supposed to be about caring for Tom, Tom’s daughter would surreptitiously sneak around the home, searching for valuables to take with her at that time, at a later date, or by someone else.
While Tom was sick, Tom’s daughter would remove family heirloom jewelry from the home, personal items, memorabilia, art objects, and other property without permission. When Tom and Jean would go to medical appointments, often times when they returned home they would find that some of Tom’s tools had been taken from the garage. Tom’s daughter and her accomplices were removing property from Tom and Jean’s home, because they felt that Jean did not have a right to this property. Tom’s daughter even spoke about selling Tom’s home and everything in it, once Tom died, as if his wife Jean didn’t even exist.
Between the day that Tom died and the day of his funeral, when Jean left her home to go make funeral arrangements and cemetery arrangements, when she returned home she found that someone had gone through everything in her garage. In the back yard, someone had pulled down the railroad ties that framed in their garden, so that they could dig through her garden, looking for who knows what.
Following her husband Tom’s funeral, every day there were phone calls or people knocking on Jean’s front door, saying that they were friends, relatives, acquaintances of Tom, or strangers, asking her what she was going to do with Tom’s guns. She said to one of the strangers, why are all these people calling me and showing up at my front door asking about my husband’s guns, who is telling you to come here? The stranger replied, that he was told by the people at the local Ranch Store.
Everything that I wrote up above, I have seen before. Daughters of fathers who re-married, thinking that the new wife, is not entitled to anything, though their father and the new wife might have been married for twenty years or more. Legally, the wife of a deceased husband, is entitled to what the husband leaves behind, not just as a matter of inheritance, but because things like a home, furniture, automobiles, and recreational vehicles were jointly owned and jointly used.
I have seen where family members of a terminally ill person show up, under the guise of caring, but who are really there because of their interest in seeing what assets that they might get a hold of. I have seen two medical doctors get all excited about a twenty year old Toyota Corolla that was worth about $3,000, when neither of these two medical doctors had the right of inheritance to this car, it was the joint marital property of the widowed wife. You would think that a doctor could buy their own car.
I have seen where widowed women have their house, garage, or shop broken into while they attend their husband’s funeral. It most often appears that when spotting scopes, range finders, and hunting bows are taken, it was one of their husband’s friends or one of their neighbors that took these things. I would recommend, that when a family goes to a funeral now, that they post someone as a guard at the home of the deceased person during the funeral.
I have seen where hunters, gun collectors, and other sleazy assholes, read obituaries in the newspaper and then telephone and show up at widowed women’s houses, hoping to get firearms away from some woman who has no idea that these firearms might be worth thousands of dollars, who is grieving and not thinking clearly about things, such as needing to get the full cash value for things like gun collections, or vintage vehicles.
I am going to write this blog post about YouTube Channels, in the order of least annoying to most annoying.
When I watch metal detecting and abandoned places exploration videos on YouTube, I don’t recall ever being asked for money. The metal detecting people very much enjoy everything about what they are doing, traveling to new places, exploring new places, detecting buried objects, and digging up objects to see what they are.
The abandoned places exploration videos, those people get pretty excited, and are happy in what they are doing too. Now that I think about it, the exploration people usually ask for people to subscribe to their YouTube channel at the end of their videos.
When a YouTube channel gains a certain number of subscribers, and YouTube can see how many people are visiting a YouTube channel, YouTube has a formula that they use to determine how much money they will pay to a YouTube channel owner, based on how much paid advertising that they can place on that channel.
Look at it this way, when a particular person consistently uploads videos to their YouTube channel, and their videos usually receive 30,000 views, that person might as well be producing a daily or weekly television show, with that many views. When these 30,000 viewers are drawn to a particular person’s videos, yes YouTube should pay the video creator a portion of the advertising revenue, and YouTube does.
The RV Life, Travel Trailer Life, Van Life people, who began making YouTube videos ten years ago, gained enough subscribers to their YouTube channels, maybe 30,000 to 100,000 subscribers, plus they had consistently very high views to their videos, that some of them eventually began getting paid $500 to $5,000 per month by YouTube, based on YouTube’s pay formula.
I don’t see anything wrong with this. The RV Life, Travel Trailer Life, and Van Life people did not want to be tied down to one spot by having a normal job, so making videos of what they were doing, travelling from place to place, gave YouTube viewers something that they wanted to see and learn about, and in turn YouTube paid the video creators, which allowed them to continue to live out on the road.
However, there became a problem, which I believe that I wrote about not too long ago in a blog post titled something like “Fake People On YouTube”. The real RV Life, Travel Trailer Life, and Van Life people that claimed to be living in their camper, were living in their camper, and they were making a video for YouTube about once every two or three days.
The fake RV Life, Travel Trailer Life, and Van Life people, practically held a casting call for young ladies that looked good in a bikini, and for cute looking dogs. They obtained some props, like a camper, van, surfboards, or kayaks, got some wardrobe, and developed a shooting schedule with locations. They went out on the road, they filmed at about ten locations per day, stayed in a hotel every night, until their shooting schedule was completed after about ten days.
The fake RV Life, Travel Trailer Life, and Van Life people, would film at enough locations in ten days, to have enough material for perhaps 50 to 80 videos. Then, they could release two of these videos per week, for the next six months, to their YouTube RV Life channel, without ever having spent even a single night in an RV.
The fake RV Life people were called out on this, when the real RV Life people began pointing out that the fake people didn’t even have any food, water, utensils, or bedding in their RVs.
I am mentioning the fake RV Life, Travel Trailer Life, and Van Life people again, because some YouTube viewers have pointed out, that these people tend to begin sharing all of their difficulties on the road, which leads up to them asking for money from viewers.
What I have noticed, is that just about all of the female campers, whether they are alone or with a man, end up sharing their problems on the road, and their YouTube videos begin to amount to thinly veiled begging and fund drives.
Finally, I am getting to what are now the most annoying YouTube videos to me. These are the alternative lifestyle videos. Typically, these alternative lifestyle videos involve people who do not have a job, but they seek to enjoy a good lifestyle, which often includes travel.
There are so many tangents that I could go off on complaining about the alternative lifestyle videos on YouTube, that I will try to stick to just one subject, employment. These people who make YouTube videos and do not have a job, are living in their car, or are staying with friends or family, I can tell from watching them, that they could get a job as a waiter, waitress, at Home Depot, or a car wash.
Yes, they would have to put on and wear shoes at work, they might be required to shove their dread locks up under a hat or scarf, they would have to show up to work on time, and stay at work until the end of their shift, but I think that they could do it, just like everyone else has to.
The alternative lifestyle people see themselves as too sensitive, too creative, too intelligent for ordinary work, and they are trying to find work that is meaningful to them, or a lifestyle that suits them. They create a YouTube channel, and they begin uploading videos, hoping to gain enough subscribers and enough video views, to begin receiving monthly payments from YouTube.
More and more young people are creating a YouTube channel, hoping to gain thousands of subscribers, thousands of views to their videos, and eventually receive monthly payments from YouTube.
In order to set themselves apart from other people on YouTube, to gain extra sympathy and extra attention, they begin making videos about their ADHD, their depression, their bi-polar disorder, their schizophrenia, their homelessness, their step brother trying to have sex with them, their step father trying to have sex with them, their teacher trying to have sex with them, them coming out of the closet as a lesbian, or why they like to have sex with their dog.
With about 320 million people in the United States, it is not going to pay for much longer, when you have about 20 million Americans with a YouTube channel, trying to make shit up on YouTube to gain sympathy and subscribers.
Dickinson58601 