Tag Archives: Living in Dickinson, North Dakota

Housing, Employment, Culture, Night Life, Restaurants, Cost of Living, Police, Shopping, 58601

The Fast Food Restaurant Workers Are Friendly In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

The fast food restaurant workers are friendly in Dickinson, North Dakota.  I have wondered about this for several years, because the waitresses and bartenders in the non-fast food restaurants in Dickinson are unfriendly.  This doesn’t make any sense.

I have been going to Arby’s in Dickinson for almost five years.  I never, ever, had a bad experience at this Arby’s in Dickinson.  No one at the Arby’s in Dickinson was ever unfriendly to me, and all the employees always appeared to get along with each other.  They never once got my order wrong.

I have eaten less at Wendy’s in Dickinson, than I have at Arby’s, but for the past five years I have never a bad experience at Wendy’s.  The employees have always been friendly, and they have never gotten my order wrong.

At the Burger King in Dickinson, most of the employees now are black, and many of them are from Africa.  In the past several years, they have gotten my order slightly wrong once.  They have always been friendly.

At Arby’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King in Dickinson, I have not had one bad experience in five years.  The employees have been friendly when I am ordering my food, when I am waiting, when I go and sit down and eat, and when I leave.

What does not make any sense, is that the fast food workers don’t get paid very much money, and they don’t get any tips from customers, yet they are friendly to customers, whereas the waitresses and bartenders at restaurants in Dickinson are unfriendly, and they expect to get tips from customers.

Some examples that stand out in my mind, are some of the bartenders that they used to have at The Players Club in Dickinson.  One night, on the street in front of The Players Club, the police had someone pulled over for DUI.  When I walked inside, I said to the bartender, that the police stopping someone for DUI right in front of the bar was probably not good for business.  The bartender said, “That’s what you get for drinking and driving.”  I thought, that was a stupid thing for a bartender to say, that he thinks his customers should be stopped for DUI.  It is not illegal to have drinks at a bar and drive home.  Some of the other bartenders they used to have at The Players Club were kind of scowling, sneering, and miserable in their job, and they made me want to never come back.

This is when I first started to think, why are the people working at the drive thru in Wendy’s so friendly and smiling, and the bartenders who make most of their money on tips from customers so unfriendly?  The drive thru workers at Wendy’s aren’t going to make any additional money by being friendly, yet they are friendly.  And the bartenders would make more money and have more customers if they were friendly, yet they are not friendly.

All of the workers in the fast food restaurants seemed to be focused on their jobs and getting the food out.  Many or most of the waitresses and bartenders in Dickinson appeared to be sullen, bitter, and angry both about their work circumstances and their personal lives.

If you want to have a pleasant, drama-free dining experience in Dickinson, I recommend going to Arby’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Dominos, or Taco Johns where the employees do their job, get the food out to you, and you can go and sit down and eat in peace.  At the restaurants with waitresses and bartenders in Dickinson, you get treated like you are their enemy and the source of all their difficulties.

Disappointment With The Hottest Girl In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , ,

In a previous recent blog post, I wrote about meeting the hottest girl in Dickinson, North Dakota.  I wrote that I am normally not very interested in “hot” women, because they are so much trouble.

Several months ago I wrote a blog post titled “List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson, North Dakota”.  The criteria for being on that list, was that the woman be attractive, civil, decent, and respectable.  Being “hot” was not one of the criteria.  I would not put any woman on that list that would bring dishonor to the other women.  Some of the women on my list of attractive women in Dickinson, I have known for more than several years.  I am not disappointed or displeased with any of the women on my list of attractive women in Dickinson.  I am proud of them, and the way that they conduct themselves.

After only spending a few hours with “the hottest girl in Dickinson, North Dakota”, I not only have lost interest in her, I am repulsed by her.  I am ashamed of myself for not having better judgement.

I was infatuated with her for about ten days.  I looked forward to seeing her.  I was able to speak to her some, but not as much as I would have liked.  What little I was able to say to her, she had no interest in.  When I was around her, I was able to listen to what she had to say to other people.  She seemed witty and clever.  She also seemed to have a good attitude, and a good disposition.

I talked to two of her women friends, who I have known for a couple of years.  They did not have anything wonderful and amazing to say about her, which surprised me, because I thought that she was impressive.  I concluded that these two women friends of hers were just jealous.

When I got another chance to speak to “the hottest girl in Dickinson, North Dakota”, nothing that I had to say was very interesting to her.  I instead ended up talking to someone from the South, like me.  The person from the South, wanted to talk to me, more than I wanted to talk to them, because I was there to see the girl that I was infatuated with.  I ended up talking to several people that I had no intention of talking to.

The other people that I was talking to, what they were saying was not very interesting to “the hottest girl in Dickinson, North Dakota.”  What they were saying, was completely reasonable, intelligent, and they were expressing things that were important and significant to them.  I began to realize, that the hot girl, was not willing or able to talk about anything.  She could make faces, make funny expressions, say stupid things that were funny, but not have a conversation that involved speaking in complete sentences to express a point, opinion, or convey much information.

The hot girl’s behavior was all about getting attention.  The way she acted, and what she said, was all about her getting attention.  She had gotten my attention by wearing tight jeans, a tight tank top, and by making witty and clever comments.  This worked in getting me to like her.  But when I tried to find out more about her, it was painfully difficult.  Like I said, she was unwilling or unable to talk about anything, only able to make funny comments and funny faces.

Finally, what she did manage to reveal about herself, was that she thought that she was hot, that she was highly sought after, and that she could do what ever she wanted.  This was all I needed to know.  I no longer wanted to have anything to do with her.

What I was hoping to find out, was what kinds of things she liked to do, what did she enjoy, what did she look forward to, what did she want to do.  From finding these things out, I could know more about what kind of person she was.  Was she honest, trustworthy, reliable, compassionate, considerate, kind, loyal, affectionate, hardworking, ambitious, open minded, educated, intelligent….?  My answer was, no.  Since her perception of reality was that she was hot, highly sought after, and that she could do whatever she wanted, I could not expect anything good to come from her.

On my list of attractive women in Dickinson, there are some women that just happen to be hot.  But these hot women, tone down their hotness for the sake of other men, their husbands, and their children.  They disregard their hotness, and they work hard, educate themselves, advance in their careers, take care of others, are considerate to others, take an interest in others, pursue hobbies, and are involved in the community.

I should have known better.  There are expressions in the Bible about “strange women”, whose path leads to destruction and her ways are death.  Does a good tree produce bad fruit, and a bad tree produce good fruit?  A tree will be known by its fruit.

They Hide Jobs In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

I recently wrote several blog posts explaining that there are much fewer job advertisements in Dickinson this April, than there used to be in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.  I gave some comparisons on what jobs were advertised this April on the websites for North Dakota Job Service, Indeed.com, and Careerbuilder.com, compared to past years in Dickinson, North Dakota.

A local Dickinson reader, who works in pre-employment screening, wrote some comments to my blog posts about there being fewer job advertisements in Dickinson.  She stated that I was not completely correct about there being a work slow down in Dickinson.  She wrote that many local companies were hiring, that I might be unaware of this, because many local companies were not placing job advertisements on North Dakota Job service, Indeed.com, Careerbuilder, or Monster.com.

This made me angry, because I have seen this before in Dickinson, where local human resources personnel try to hide job announcements, in order to make these jobs only accessible to their friends and relatives that they tell about the job announcement.  I copied the reader’s comments to my blog post, and I pasted her comments to a new blog post, to bring attention to her comments.  I wanted all of the out of state workers to see this, and be aware of this.

I wrote in response to this reader’s comments, that I had seen this before in Dickinson, where Dickinson State University, the City of Dickinson, and Stark County will “hide” a job announcement.  Instead of placing the job announcement in the most widely read job posting sites such as, North Dakota Job Service, Indeed.com, Careerbuilder.com, or Monster.com, they will post the job announcement on an obscure website where no one will ever find it.

This practice that the local human resources personnel in Dickinson have, of meeting a city, county, or state agency legal requirement to publicly advertise a job announcement, by placing the job announcement someplace where no will find it, except for the people that they personally tell, is illegal.  I will explain why it is illegal.

All employers in the United States, both government agencies and private companies, are required to comply with the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, which states that employers can not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, age, color, sexual orientation, or disability.  I believe that it can be proven that the human resources personnel at Dickinson State University, the City of Dickinson, and Stark County are guilty of violating the EEO laws.

DSU, the City of Dickinson, and Stark County often post job announcements where they can not be found by normal people, conducting a normal job search.  It can be shown that the human resources personnel are deliberately and intentionally trying to hide job announcements, for job openings at publicly funded institutions and government agencies.  It can be shown that the human resources personnel are deliberately and intentionally concealing job openings so that there are very few job applicants, and not openly advertising to get a large number of applicants with relevant experience and relevant education.

One reason that the local human resources personnel are deliberately hiding job openings, so that they do not get a large number of applicants with relevant experience and relevant education, is because their intention is to hire friends and relatives who would not be the most qualified applicant if the job opening was fairly and openly advertised.  This practice is called “nepotism”, and this practice is unethical and illegal in hiring at publicly funded institutions and government agencies.  These jobs are supposed to be open to everyone.

When the human resources personnel in Dickinson hide a job announcement, and only tell certain people about the job opening, they are violating the Equal Employment Opportunity Act.  They are practicing discrimination, and this discrimination is illegal.  They are only telling people that they are “comfortable” with getting the job.  The EEO laws are meant to ensure that jobs are open to everyone, that there is no discrimination.  When a job announcement is hidden where it is unlikely to be found by a normal person conducting a normal job search, and only certain people are told about the job opening, this allows discrimination against Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, homosexuals, transgenders, people from out of state, or anyone that they don’t like.

For the past six months, I have been very interested in what new job openings are posted in Dickinson, North Dakota.  Three times each week, I normally look at job listings on North Dakota Job Service, Indeed.com, and Careerbuilder.com.  For the past two months, I have also been regularly looking at other job posting websites such as Rigzone and Monster.com.  Twice each month, I do a Google Search, for specific job titles in North Dakota, which turns up jobs from other job posting websites.

I look at all the different job posting sites, so that I can see what is going on in my industry, what is going on in North Dakota, and to look for job openings for myself and for others.  There are three people in Dickinson, that I each got hired to work with me, and later got them hired to work with someone else that I know in the same industry.  There are three other people in Dickinson that I got hired to work with me part time.  Whenever I see these six people, we discuss and compare what job openings we have seen advertised for the industry that we work in.

Yesterday, I discussed with two of these people that I have gotten hired before, what job openings that I had seen advertised, and what job openings they had seen advertised for the industry that we work in.  Both of these people are lifelong Dickinson residents who are currently unemployed and looking for work.

Today, I again reviewed North Dakota Job Service, Indeed.com, Careerbuilder.com, and Monster.com for job openings.  Then, I did a Google Search, for a specific job title.  I opened every job posting website, on page one, page two, and page three of the Google Search results.  I looked at approximately six, less well known job posting websites, and reviewed all the job announcements.  The six less well known job posting websites, all had job announcements that were shown on Indeed.com and Monster.com.

On about the third page of Google Search results, on about the seventh job posting website, I saw the job listing website for LinkedIn.  On the LinkedIn job posting website, I found a 30 day old job announcement from Dickinson State University, for work that myself and my friends are looking for.  I then asked my friends who work in this same industry as me, if they had seen this job announcement at Dickinson State University, and none of them had.

The two lifelong Dickinson residents that are unemployed and looking for work, that I had a discussion with yesterday about job openings in Dickinson in our industry, they were unaware of the 30 day old job announcement at Dickinson State University.  These two people look for job openings every day on the internet, and they talk to local people they know about job openings in Dickinson.  Each of these two people attended Dickinson State University.  This job opening at DSU, was for work that each of them had been doing recently.  They couldn’t apply for this job, because they didn’t even know about it, though they are lifelong Dickinson residents, former DSU students, and they look for job openings every day on the internet.

Also on LinkedIn today, was an eleven day old job announcement from Stark County, that neither myself or any of my local Dickinson friends have ever seen before.  How can this be good, that neither myself, or my friends, who frequently look for job openings on the internet, and discuss what job openings are available, never see the job announcements that Stark County hides?

I should probably file a complaint with the North Dakota Attorney General’s office, that Dickinson State University, Stark County, and the City of Dickinson are not complying with the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, by hiding job announcements and only telling people that they know and approve of, about the job announcement.

If You Come To Work In Dickinson, North Dakota, You Must Plan On Leaving

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

If you come to work in Dickinson, North Dakota, you must plan on leaving.  This is probably the most important advice that I could give to anyone.

I first came to work in Dickinson from Idaho, in 2011.  I have lived in Dickinson for almost five years now.  Something that I now realize was a mistake, was that once I had been here for a while, I tried to settle in, to be comfortable, and I tried to make a life here.

When I first came to Dickinson in 2011, I ended up staying in my truck camper on company property where I was working.  My goal was to make as much money as possible, and then return to my home in Idaho when I had made enough money.  I brought over one extra vehicle, so that I could drive around after work and on weekends without moving my truck camper.  Making money, saving money, and bringing just the bare minimum of personal belongings to Dickinson, these were all good ideas that I should have continued to follow.

When I came back to Dickinson in 2013, by the winter I had moved into a house.  I purchased an additional vehicle in Dickinson.  I bought a couple of kayaks.  I bought some mountain bikes.  I later brought over from Idaho, two extra trucks, two equipment trailers, and construction equipment.  I began doing self employed construction work, in addition to my other job.

Instead of making money, saving money, and going back to Idaho when I had made enough money, I tried to make a life here in Dickinson.  I tried to have a normal life in Dickinson, because it looked like I was going to be here for several years.  I began trying to do things that I enjoyed doing elsewhere, riding my bike, kayaking, fishing, going to the gym, going to restaurants and bars, trying to meet women, driving jeeps out to nowhere.  This turned out to be a mistake, trying to make a life in Dickinson.

I have been writing blog posts for a little over 2-1/2 years, and I have written very few good things about Dickinson, and many, many bad things about Dickinson, North Dakota.  Primarily, the local people are unfriendly, uncooperative, hostile, hateful, uneducated, very greedy, and they raised housing prices 400% to 500% to gouge the out of state workers.  There is a shortage of women and a scarcity of attractive women.  The restaurants are not very good, and the waitresses and bartenders hate their jobs, hate their customers, hate white men, and hate Dickinson.  The police follow everyone leaving restaurants and bars hoping and trying to arrest them for something.

I tried to make a life here in Dickinson, and this was a mistake.  Dickinson is not normal, and it is never going to be normal.  There will always be a scarcity of attractive women in Dickinson.  The restaurants and bars will always be bad with waitresses and bartenders that hate their job and hate their customers.  The people here will always be unfriendly, uncooperative, hostile, and hateful.  I guess that I thought that I would try to persevere, and try to make things as bearable as possible while I was living here in Dickinson.

Things are so bad in Dickinson now, that I can now see that I had made a mistake when I changed my plans from working, saving, and leaving, to trying to do things, have things, and become involved in things here in Dickinson.

There are very few job openings in Dickinson now, even though this is the busiest hiring month in Dickinson.  My job is not very busy, and I am not making very much money.  Once I had brought extra vehicles, trailers, and equipment to Dickinson, my local landlord began being difficult and causing problems, thinking that I was stuck here, and that I could not leave.  Once I started taking my extra vehicles and equipment back to Idaho in preparation for moving out, my landlord changed his attitude.

Without having some of my equipment that I moved back to Idaho, in order to do my self employed construction work, I had to re-buy equipment from local businesses that I had bought this equipment from last year.  I was shocked recently when two local business owners that I had bought equipment from last year, were very nasty to me when I talked to them about buying more equipment from them.  I regretted having spent over $1,200 at these two local businesses.

These two local business owners being so nasty, caused me to think about what I am doing in Dickinson.  Just about every involvement with anything and anyone in Dickinson has been negative.  The local people are so unfriendly, the women are unattractive and unfriendly, the waitresses and bartenders are so unfriendly, the local business owners are nasty, and the police follow everyone around trying to arrest them for something, I guess that it was a mistake in trying to make a life here.  I just should have brought the bare minimum of belongings over here to Dickinson, and tried to have as little involvement as possible in Dickinson.

I recommend to out of state workers, do not move to Dickinson, just plan on staying here while you have a job.  Do not buy a house in Dickinson.  Do not pay a lot for housing, get just the bare minimum for housing.  Try to get a lease that allows you to break your lease by giving notice and paying a penalty.  Try to bring a minimum of belongings to Dickinson.  Be ready to leave Dickinson.  Try to make as much money as possible, to save as much money as possible, and to spend as little as possible.  While you are here, try to research some place better to move to.

After living in Dickinson for almost five years, with everything that I have seen, learned, and experienced, you can’t have a normal life, or a good life here in Dickinson.  Don’t get trapped here because you have bought a house which you will be unable to sell, or because you have spent your money on a new car, motorcycle, or boat.  Plan on saving your money so that you will be able to leave.  Don’t accidentally get trapped here in Dickinson.

Risks Of Having Any Involvement In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

When I first started this blog website over 2-1/2 years ago, in my first blog posts I wrote that the local people here in Dickinson were unfriendly, uncooperative, and hostile to people who came from out of state to work in Dickinson.  I wrote that the local people here in Dickinson hate people from out of state, and anything that out of state people say to them, only makes them dislike out of state people more.  I also wrote that the local people here in Dickinson, hate each other too.

I have lived in Dickinson for almost five years now, and it just continues to be demonstrated that the local people here are unfriendly, uncooperative, hateful, and hostile.  Because of my experiences here, and what I have seen and observed in Dickinson, I would recommend to people from out of state, to not get involved in Dickinson.

I recommend to people from out of state who come to work in Dickinson, to plan on having as little involvement in Dickinson as possible.  I understand moving to Dickinson to work.  Due to the oil boom, there were higher paying jobs with more overtime hours, than other places in the United States.  I came from Idaho to work in Dickinson.

When I first came to Dickinson to work in 2011, I just planned on making money, saving money, and returning to my home in Idaho.  When being hired at my first job in Dickinson, my employer had told me and another man from Montana, that the company would provide housing for us.  I had bought a truck camper to put on my truck before I drove to Dickinson, so I just stayed in my truck camper on the company property at first.  My local Dickinson co-workers, began complaining to the company that it was not right or fair for the company to provide housing for me and the other out of state worker.  It would not have harmed or cost my local Dickinson co-workers anything, for the company to provide housing for me and the other out of state worker.  However, my local Dickinson co-workers complaining because they were hateful, hostile, unfriendly, and uncooperative, caused the company to not provide housing like they had said they would when I was being hired.

Next, my local Dickinson co-workers began complaining that it was not right for me and the other out of state worker to be able to stay in a camper on the company property, for free.  I explained to my local co-workers when they complained about me staying in my camper on the company property, “I have a home like you do, but my home is in another state.  I have to pay all the same housing bills as you do, house payments, property tax, home insurance, and utilities, for my home in Idaho.  I don’t want or need two homes.  I can’t afford to pay for two homes.”

I found out at the first company that I worked for in Dickinson, and at the second company that I worked for in Dickinson, that the local people hate people from out of state.  Anything you say, or anything that they find out about you, just makes them hate you more.  Even saying something innocuous, just makes them hate you more.  Anything you say, or anything you tell them, they will spend all day trying to figure out how to use it against you.

After everything that I have experienced in Dickinson for the five years that I have lived here, I need to warn out of state workers, to plan before you ever arrive in Dickinson, to have as little to do as possible with your local Dickinson co-workers, and have as little involvement as possible in Dickinson.  The more that people find out about you in Dickinson, the more problems you will have.  The more that you become involved in Dickinson, the more problems you will have.

At the first company that I worked for in Dickinson, my employer asked me what I thought about Dickinson.  I knew what he was getting at, he wanted to know if I was planning on staying in Dickinson.  I said the only positive thing that I could think of, I said that I thought it was nice that Dickinson had a lot of undeveloped land and was not over crowded.  However, what I was thinking in my mind, was that I was not about to try to stay in Dickinson.  The least expensive old one bedroom apartments rented for $1,500 per month if you could even find one available, and it would be in a wretched building and a bad neighborhood.  I was not about to sell my quiet peaceful home in Idaho on five acres, in order to buy a horrible shitty townhome in a bad neighborhood in Dickinson for $120,000.

What employers and local co-workers were always trying to find out, was how invested and how trapped were you going to become in Dickinson.  The employers and local co-workers knew that the out of state workers would have to pay 400% to 500% more than they did for housing, and they really enjoyed this.  The local people in Dickinson are hateful and hostile to out of state workers, and they actually enjoyed and took satisfaction in knowing that the out of state workers were being taken advantage of tremendously on housing.  The employers and local co-workers were very interested in finding out what your plans were.  They wanted to find out if you were going to stay, they enjoyed finding out how much you had to pay for housing, and they wanted to determine how financially burdened and how trapped you were becoming.

Any hesitation or resistance that an out of state worker showed to becoming committed to paying for extremely high housing, was seen by employers and local co-workers as an indication that a worker was not planning on staying, and they didn’t like it.  They didn’t like it because you might be planning on quitting your job and leaving Dickinson, and they didn’t like it because you deprived them of the satisfaction of being taken advantage of by the local people, one of them.

I recommend to out of state workers, and I have been recommending this for the past 2-1/2 years, do not buy a home in Dickinson at this time.  The home prices are still very high.  The oil boom is over.  The number of oil field jobs may stay roughly the same, or there may be a decrease in oil field jobs.  There are a tremendous number of newly completed apartments in Dickinson, and the occupancy rates at these new apartments is below 50%.  Housing prices will continue to decline, home prices will continue to decline.  Do not buy a house in Dickinson now, because in two years houses in Dickinson could easily be worth 20% to 50% less.  Also, you face the possibility of not being able to sell your house in Dickinson.

I saw that the employers in Dickinson and the local co-workers were interested in what the out of state workers were going to do for housing, because they enjoyed finding out how bad the out of state workers were being gouged by the local people, and they were looking forward to the out of state workers becoming trapped here.  The employers wanted the out of state workers to get into an expensive housing lease or mortgage, so that they would have no choice, they would be stuck here and have to work for them.  The employers were also looking forward to the out of state workers getting into an expensive lease or mortgage, being stuck here, having to work for them, and then employers being able to drop the pay rates.

When I found an inexpensive and stable place to live in Dickinson, I brought over from Idaho, two extra trucks, two equipment trailers, and equipment to begin doing self employed construction work in Dickinson.  I later regretted doing this.  I was again taught the lesson to have as little involvement as possible in Dickinson.

My landlord became more difficult and disagreeable, once he saw that I had so much equipment and property here in Dickinson, that I could not easily leave, that I was stuck here.  When I started moving my equipment back to Idaho in preparation for moving out, my landlord changed his behavior immediately.  I regretted becoming invested in Dickinson, trying to do business here, bringing vehicles, equipment, and personal property here, then a local person knowing my situation, thinking that I was stuck here, and then trying to take advantage.

When I had to re-buy $800 worth of equipment that I had just taken back to Idaho, from a local equipment dealer in Dickinson that I bought this equipment from last year, the local business owner was incredibly shitty to me.  A few days ago when I was talking to another local business owner, who I had bought a generator from, this local business owner was also incredibly shitty to me.  I regretted doing business with these local business owners in Dickinson, and I regretted trying to operate my business in Dickinson.

When I began to think about my experiences here in Dickinson, I regretted just about every involvement in anything here in Dickinson.  Going out to eat at restaurants, going out to bars, the staff are not friendly, and the customers are often very trashy and low class.  Leaving restaurants and bars, the police in Dickinson are very aggressive in following people, hoping and trying to arrest them for something.

Public recreational places like Patterson Lake and the West River Community Center are often not good places to be, because of misbehaving people and hoodlums.  Business owners that I have bought multiple pieces of equipment from have turned out to be very unappreciative and nasty.  Co-workers that I have tried to be civil to have caused me problems.  Local people that I have tried to be friends with, have shown to be unhelpful and greedy.  People that I have helped, have been unappreciative and have caused me problems.

If I had good sense, I would follow my own advice, and try to have as little involvement as possible in Dickinson.  Don’t go to restaurants and bars in Dickinson.  Don’t go to locally owned businesses in Dickinson.  Try to spend as little money as possible in Dickinson.  Pay as little as possible for housing in Dickinson, don’t get on a lease, and don’t buy a house.  Don’t go anywhere, stay at home, and only go to WalMart when you need something.  Try to save as much money as possible so that you can leave Dickinson and have a normal life elsewhere one day.

A Local Reader’s Reply To My Blog Posts About Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

I have copied and pasted a local reader’s comment to one of my blog posts about employment and Catholics in Dickinson, North Dakota:

First of all, I did not say that your facts about how many jobs posted was incorrect.  I meant your facts about me, my family, and my life.  Second of all, here is another example where you need to open up that closed mind of yours.  You are absolutely correct that it is not the same as it was in 2011-2014.  But that does not mean that it is not picking up.

There is a big difference between then and now.  At that time we had such a huge influx of people and no housing, that of course the hotels were full.  Since then the housing market has caught up and more hotels have opened up, along with many people leaving when it slowed way down.

I don’t believe that job service has someone scouring the internet looking for jobs that have been posted. That would not be a good business practice. Again things have changed. Companies are holding job fairs, utilizing tv and radio, posting on social media.

I read your post to a business owner who says he won’t use job service. He had in the past and didn’t receive one application from there. It is starting to be an outdated service. Yes people network and of course they want someone they know to work along side them.  This is something that happens everywhere not just Dickinson.  In a different post, you complained about businesses in Watford City hiring lesbians. North Dakota is a right to work state and employers are not allowed to discriminate against you for your sexuality or religion. Also, in the end, a business owner is in it for the money, and will not hire someone they know if it is not a good business decision.

Alright and now the Catholics….. just let it go already.  You are grouping so many people into your bs prejudice.   Yes a very large part of the population here is Catholic. But they aren’t all out to get you.

You said something about how the settlers discouraged kids from higher education.  This is not true.  99% of these people were farmers.  The local schools went to 8th grade.  Once you finished that, you were expected to help out at home.  Many of these families had 10 plus children along with all the farm work.  Mouths need to be fed and work needed to be done. Again things today are very different than they were 100 years ago.

Now about the housing prices going up, this is simple supply and demand.  Anyone regardless of religion, race, sexuality, whatever would do the exact same thing.  If people are willing to pay it, they will charge it.  This would happen anywhere. There was also a comment about the Catholics having vacant land that could be used for low income housing or a homeless shelter.  These people bought this land and it is theirs to use how they see fit.  I highly doubt that anyone anywhere would just give up land so that apartments could be built.  If you want to buy it that’s a different story.  I assume you have a bed, why don’t you give it up to a homeless person tonight?

I wanted to post this reader’s comments, so that more people can read them.  The reader spent some time putting her thoughts together in these comments.  She wanted to express her point of view, and she wanted to disagree with many of the things that I wrote.

It would be useful for out of state workers who are considering moving to Dickinson, to read this local Dickinson woman’s comments.

There are just a few things that I want to explain to the author of the comments, Ali:

Yes, I have let a person in Dickinson that did not have a place to stay, stay where I live, when he did not have any money.  Eventually when he did got a job, his rent was based on how much he could afford to pay.  When his truck broke down, I let him borrow my new mountain bike, which he damaged, and I did not make him pay for it.  Because he used the same shower and bathroom as me, I got athlete’s foot fungus from him.  Helping people is sometimes inconvenient.  His name was Mike.

Mike was Catholic.  He went to Catholic Mass in Dickinson at least twice a week.  He tried every Catholic Church in Dickinson, Richardton, and Belfield, and at each Catholic Church, the people were very unfriendly to him.  I repeat, he went to every Catholic Church in Dickinson, Richardton, and Belfield, and at each Catholic Church, the people were very unfriendly to him.

At one Catholic Church service, the priest said, “Reach out and shake the hand of the person next to you in fellowship.”  When Mike reached out to shake the hand of the woman next to him, she scowled at Mike and stepped back from him.

At my home in Idaho, I have let a person stay in my home without paying rent or paying utilities for several months, because he did not have any money to pay.  It caused me some problems and inconvenience.

It does not hurt me financially to let people stay where I live, or stay in the home that I own.  I would still have to pay insurance, property tax, and utilities anyway.  I am not wealthy, and I don’t have a high income, yet I was willing and able to help others.  Besides the Biblical teaching “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, there is the common wise saying, “There but for the grace of God, go I”, which means, the same thing can happen to you.

Many of the property owners in Dickinson are financially well off, and their properties were long ago paid for.  They could have charged reasonable rent, or increased their rent by 100%.  The rent increases of 400% to 500%, are what the Bible refers to as “usury”.  “Usury” is lending money at interest, but as it is used in the Bible, it means any manner of taking advantage of others financially.

The Catholics in Dickinson committed Usury, a very bad sin, and no amount of denying it, or trying to justify it, changes the fact that it was Usury.

There Should Be A Gay Bar Called Baker Hughes In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , ,

In 2011 the international oil field service company Baker Hughes began constructing a very large facility on Highway 22 on the north side of Dickinson, North Dakota.  The facility consisted of an administrative building, warehouse buildings, and shop buildings.  The site occupies approximately ten acres of land, and the facility probably cost at least $50 million to construct.

When I first came to Dickinson in 2011, the only large truck stop was Tiger Truck Stop.  The Baker Hughes fracking and wireline specialty trucks would travel together in a convoy to go to Tiger Truck stop to fuel up.  All the Baker Hughes personnel when they are on duty, wear blue/grey Baker Hughes coveralls, which I believe have two silver reflective bands on each sleeve and each pants leg.

The Baker Hughes international oil field service company, is a pretty straight and serious company, which is why I think that there should be a gay bar in Dickinson called Baker Hughes.  This gay bar should also be on Highway 22, like the real Baker Hughes international oil field service company.

This gay bar should be in a big warehouse building, with a large sign out front, in the same letter style as the real Baker Hughes.  For legal reasons, maybe the gay bar sign would have to say “Baker & Hughes”, with the “&” being as small as possible, not even noticeable.

Inside the gay bar, the bartender men would wear coveralls identical to the real Baker Hughes, with one exception, the back bottom of the coveralls would be cut out to expose the bartenders’ bare asses.  Truck drivers making deliveries to Baker Hughes, would stop at the first Baker Hughes that they came to.  The truck drivers would go inside with their delivery paper work, and say, “I have a delivery for Baker Hughes.”  The bartender would say, O.K., let me come outside with you to see what you have.  Then, the truck driver would be like, “Holy shit man!  Why are you wearing coveralls showing your bare ass!”

Young men from Minnesota, Michigan, Montana, Idaho, and Utah, would arrive in Dickinson, and want to go to Baker Hughes to put in a job application, and they would stop at the first Baker Hughes that they came to.  Arriving at about 2:00 p.m., the young men would be anxious and nervous about going to ask about a job at Baker Hughes.  They might be surprised to see how friendly the Baker Hughes people were, handing them an application to fill out, and offering them a Coke.  After about twenty minutes of filling out the job application, and handing it to the Baker Hughes person, the Baker Hughes person would say, O.K., let me go get the manager.  The young man job applicant would be like, “Holy shit!  How come your coveralls are cut out showing your bare ass! What kind of place is this!”

There would be many a young man from Minnesota, Michigan, Montana, Idaho, and Utah, calling home saying, “I don’t think I want to work in the oil field after all.”

Likewise, on Karaoke night, drag queen night, talent night, all kinds of gays and transgenders wearing flamboyant clothing would be showing up at the real Baker Hughes, banging on the glass front administration building yelling to be let in.  Very openly gay men would always be showing up at the real Baker Hughes wanting to fill out job applications.  The real Baker Hughes would find that they could not try to discourage this in any way, because trying to ask about someone’s sexuality to find out if they were at the wrong place, could be construed as discrimination.

Young men could work at the Dickinson gay bar Baker & Hughes for a year, or a couple of years, and then go down to Oklahoma or Texas, and apply for work at oil field service companies, stating that they had worked for Baker Hughes in Dickinson.

Before long in Oklahoma and Texas, oil field companies would be saying, “Man, I don’t know what they got going on in Dickinson, North Dakota, but I have never seen so many queers working in the oil field.”

Answering A Reader’s Questions About Employment And Catholics In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

A reader who lives in Dickinson, has left a couple of comments to my blog posts, and she disagrees with most of what I write about Dickinson.  This does not surprise me at all.

To summarize the indicators that the oil boom is over in Dickinson, that there is a work slow down, and that employment is way down:

  1. The busiest time for hiring in Dickinson, is March, April, and May, just before the spring, summer, and fall work season.  From Friday April 14 through the end of the day on Friday April 21, there were a total of seven new jobs posted for Dickinson on the North Dakota Job Service website.  Seven new jobs!  In 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, there would have been a total of about thirty to forty new jobs posted for Dickinson on the North Dakota Job Service website during a one week period in April.  (Note:  North Dakota Job Service receives job notices from employers, and places job announcements, but, they also go and search several other job posting services and import those job advertisements into their system, to include these job announcements as well.)
  2. For the period from April 1 through the end of the day on April 21, there were only five new job listings posted for Dickinson on the website CareerBuilder.  Five new job listings, for the entire month!  In April, the busiest hiring month in Dickinson!  In 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, there would have been about thirty to forty new job listings posted on the CareerBuilder website for Dickinson during the first three weeks of April.
  3. Today, I looked on the international oil industry website Rigzone.  On Rigzone, there were twenty-three job listings for Williston, six for Dickinson, and three for Killdeer.  A total of thirty-two job listings on Rigzone for all of North Dakota.  In 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, there were usually sixty to eighty jobs listings on Rigzone for North Dakota in April.
  4. The job posting websites Indeed.com and Monster.com have much fewer job listings for Dickinson than they did in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014.
  5. In Dickinson, during the months of March, April, and May, in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, the underground utility locating company ELM would have to place repeating job advertisements every other week in order to hire and train enough underground utility locators to respond to all the construction locate requests.  This year, in March and April, I have not seen one job advertisement from ELM locating.
  6. In Dickinson, during the months of March, April, and May, in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, all the oil field service companies would place job advertisements, companies like Timberline/Liberty, Weatherford, Steier, Bob’s, Key, Titan, SM, Champ, K&R.  So far this year in March and April, I saw one job advertisement from Steier, and no job advertisements from these other oil field service companies.
  7. The three Family Fare grocery stores and WalMart in Dickinson, went from staying open 24 hours per day, to closing at night in 2015, because they no longer had enough business to stay open 24 hours per day.
  8. At the Theodore Roosevelt Airport in Dickinson, they went from having two airlines, United and Delta, each making two flights per day out of Dickinson, down to one airline, with currently only about twenty-five passengers per day out of Dickinson.  The one remaining airline, United, tried to cease operations in Dickinson in approximately 2016, but they were forced to stay by the Federal government enforcing an “essential air services” regulation.
  9. The newly completed hotels in Dickinson, went from sometimes having no vacancies in 2010 and 2011 at $180 per night, to where they now have 80% vacancy at $60 per night.

 

To explain what the Catholics have done in Dickinson:

  1. The homesteaders that settled Dickinson in the late 1800s, they were German and Ukranian Catholics.  The Catholic Church was the main cultural and societal influence in Dickinson, from the beginning.  The Catholic Church did not teach, encourage, or foster, the teachings of Jesus Christ, such as “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you”, “So as you do to the least of my people, so do you unto me”, and “What profiteth a man that he gain the whole world, let lose his soul?  And, what shall he give in exchange for his soul”.  Instead, the Catholic Church taught hatred, hostility, unfriendliness, and it fostered jealousy and greed.
  2. In order to maintain its control, and in order to help its henchmen maintain control over people, the Catholic Church in Dickinson discouraged higher education, and tried to make the people in Dickinson fear and mistrust higher education.  The Catholic Church did not want people to read the Bible for themselves, interpret, and understand the Bible for themselves, lest they find out that what the Catholics were doing was evil.  With a lack of education, people in Dickinson could not get ahead, learn about other places, learn about new things, and they would continue to be trapped in Dickinson, unable and not knowing how to escape.
  3. The Catholic Church encouraged and fostered the people here to be hateful, unfriendly, uncooperative, jealous, and greedy.  When a neighbor was having difficulty, this was not taught as a time to help him, this was taught as a time to withhold help.  A neighbor failing, dying, or moving away, was the opportunity to seize his land and his possessions.
  4. Only with the one hundred years of teaching and fostering hatred and greed by the Catholic Church, would prepare these evil Catholics in Dickinson to begin raising rent and housing prices by 400% to 500%.  All Christians are supposed to help their fellow man, and do unto others as you would have them to do unto you, but in Dickinson they had been taught nothing but evil!
  5. The Catholics, the Catholic Church, and the Catholic associations in Dickinson, made plans to not allow the great abundance of vacant land in Dickinson, to be used for affordable housing, or housing for the homeless.
  6. The Catholics collude in every way possible, how to take advantage of the out of state workers.
  7. The Catholics collude in every way possible, how to manipulate, connive, and scheme to advance themselves, and hinder, undermine, and impede others.

What this local native from Dickinson wrote in her comment to my blog post, was that it was inaccurate for me to cite the few job postings on North Dakota Job Service and CareerBuilder, because the local employers weren’t posting their jobs there.

Yes!  Yes!  I have seen this before in Dickinson, North Dakota!  For employment with the City of Dickinson Police Department, and Dickinson State University, they don’t post their job opening in the local newspaper, North Dakota Job Service, CareerBuilder, Monster.com, or Indeed.com, they post it where no one can find it, except for the people that they personally tell!

Sometimes, the people who work at City offices, County offices, or State offices in Dickinson, they don’t want to post a job opening where people can see it, they don’t want to have a bunch of highly qualified applicants.  They want to tell their fellow Catholics, their brother, their uncle, their nephew, where they have hidden the job posting, so that no one else can find it and apply.  They don’t want people with relevant job experience and relevant education applying, they want their inexperienced and uneducated relative to get the job!

There Are Some Things That Women Don’t Understand About Women

Uncategorized, , ,

I recently wrote two blog posts where I mentioned my decision to not romantically pursue the women on my list of attractive women in Dickinson, because I like them, and I do not want to ruin their life.  In the past, several women have made comments to my blog posts, writing that they were sure that women didn’t like me.

There are some things that women don’t understand about other women.  Many times, women can’t see what other women find attractive in a man.  In order to explain this, I will focus on just one reason in this blog post.

I am going to try to not be insensitive about this.  I am writing this partly to explain my point, and partly to give women information that they need to know.

In a state far, far away, I was doing self-employed construction work on a very expensive house, in a very wealthy and exclusive neighborhood.  The owner of the house, was a successful medical doctor about my age, who owned and operated several medical facilities.

His wife, was also about my age.  She was very beautiful.  She was thin and athletic, very much like a fashion model in appearance.  She was very friendly to me.  She liked to talk to me.

When her husband was away at work, she would wear a white button up blouse, that was unbuttoned, and no bras.  She would wear short, cut off jean shorts.  She would sit and talk to me, so that I could see everything, and when I would get caught looking, she would just smile at me.

I liked her, and she liked me.  We would talk the whole time that I worked.  She told me very early on, that she had just had a hysterectomy.  She could no longer become pregnant.  She invited me to her second home, a couple of hours away, in a resort town.

I liked her, and she knew that I liked her.  I just never began kissing her and making love to her, though that is what she wanted.  I was partly scared that her husband would come home, he could leave work whenever he wanted, and he would throw her out of the house.  I did not have a good place for her to live, and I did not want her to lose everything that she had.  I could not come close to replacing everything that she would lose.

After having more experiences like this with other women, that recently had had hysterectomies, I came to find out that the estrogen replacement drug, Premarin, does in fact work very well in replacing female hormones.  This drug works so well, that the women who are taking it, find healthy males to be very attractive, and they begin to have sexual attraction that they have not experienced in years.  Plus, they have the urge to have sex, and they have absolutely no chance of becoming pregnant.

So, something that some women don’t understand about other women, is that there are times in the lives of women, when they are very attracted to men and want to be romantically involved, and the reasons aren’t apparent to others.  Just one reason, the topic of this blog post, is female hormone replacement therapy.

Unfortunately, I know too much now.  I know too many ways in which women are vulnerable, so I have to be very careful not to seduce women, or I would ruin their lives, and the lives of their husbands and children.

I have complained about there being a shortage of women, and a scarcity of attractive women in Dickinson.  I never have wanted to take somebody else’s girlfriend or somebody else’s wife, that is why I complained about prostitution not being allowed in Dickinson.  It wasn’t that I couldn’t get a girlfriend, it was that I didn’t want to take somebody else’s girlfriend or wife away from them, and then I wouldn’t have a place to keep her, or maybe I wouldn’t even want to keep her.

 

(To those who read this blog post and think, “You idiot!  Why, why didn’t you have sex with her!  That is what she wanted!  That was the chance of a lifetime!  She couldn’t get pregnant, she wouldn’t leave her husband”…..  I felt like I was doing the right thing at the time.  I still sometimes see her, and she still likes me, and I still like her, and I am glad that it turned out this way.)

For Those Of You Who Don’t Understand The Oil Boom, Read The Book, Moby Dick

Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

This past weekend, when the HBO channels were free, I watched the movie “In The Heart Of The Sea”, about the whaling ship the “Essex” from Nantucket.  The story of what happened to the whaling ship the “Essex”, inspired Herman Melville to write the novel Moby Dick.

I recommend reading the novel Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville, and also watching the movie “In The Heart Of The Sea”, about what happened to the whaling ship “Essex”.  They both tell the same story, but in slightly different ways.

The final voyage of the whaling ship Essex took place in 1820.  The town of Nantucket where the Essex sailed from, was one of the largest docking ports for whaling ships in North America.  North America was experiencing a “Whaling Boom”, which was an Oil Boom.  The whole point of whaling, was to boil the whale blubber to reduce it down to whale oil.  Whale oil was the biggest source of oil in the world at that time.

The book and the movie portray the ship owners in Nantucket as greedy capitalists, in the middle of an Oil Boom.  In the movie, it shows that the wealthy local people, would insist and make sure that their sons were captains of the whaling ships, whether they were qualified or not.  (This scenario is similar to the Oil Boom in Dickinson.)

The First Mate, had to be highly competent, to make up for the shortcomings of the ship captain who was in his position due to his family.  The harpooner, also had to be highly competent, because they wouldn’t get any oil without a good harpooner.  The First Mate, and the harpooner, stood to make a lot of money if they produced a great many barrels of oil.  (The First Mate and the harpooner are kind of like a drill rig boss or a tool pusher in this North Dakota Oil Boom.)

All the men on the whaling vessel would be away from home for one to three years.  And there would be no good food, and no women out at sea.  (Just like going to work in Williston, Watford City, or Dickinson.)

The men who manned the whaling ships, would experience great danger on the job, and great physical hardship.  The men who manned the whaling ships, did it because they had no viable economic opportunity where they had come from.  The men had some hope and expectation that they would strike it rich.  (This is exactly the same as what happened in Williston, Watford City, and Dickinson during this Oil Boom.)

Scenes in the book, and in the movie, where a whale gets harpooned, and the whale drags the men in the whale boats, sometimes smashing the whale boats, this is the same as riding in crew trucks on Highway 85 and Highway 22 during the Oil Boom in North Dakota, it was the same thing and equally as dangerous.

In the book Moby Dick, and in the movie “In The Heart Of The Sea”, there is a great white whale that attacks the ship Essex, and sinks it.  Later, when the men are stranded in their smaller whale boats, the great white whale follows the men and attacks them again.

I like to compare this great white whale to the Catholic Church in Dickinson, the great evil beast.

Then, the men end up cannibalizing each other.  This same thing is going to happen in Dickinson when all the businesses close, and there is no money in Dickinson, the people here will begin cannibalizing each other.

I Wouldn’t Get Married And Have Children In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

In my previous blog post, I wrote about meeting the hottest girl in Dickinson.  Normally, I am not seriously interested in hot women, because they are so much trouble.  Other men are after them all the time, and it is stressful and difficult to keep a hot girlfriend.  They are propositioned all the time by men, and they end up getting lured away.  This would be especially true in Dickinson, because there is such a shortage of women, and such a scarcity of attractive women.

But this hot girl that I like, has many more good qualities besides being hot.  She has a great sense of humor, she is very funny, very entertaining, and she says that she does not get upset easily.  She has already been through a lot in life, which has made her more mature, and self-reliant, but not jaded and mean.  She is about 30 years old, and she has lived and worked in several western states.  She was born and grew up in a resort town in one of the western states.  Like me, even though she really liked the town where she came from, she just could not make any money there, and she had to come to Dickinson to make money.  I believe that she has been married once before.

I like her so much, that I had to stop and seriously consider what I wanted to do about it.  I realized right away that I am not in a position to get married in Dickinson, so I had better just leave her alone and not try to pursue her romantically.  That would be the best thing to do, for both me and her.

I came to Dickinson in 2011 to work and make money.  There were more jobs here, and higher paying jobs here, than in Idaho where I own a home on five acres.  The only way that I was able to save money each month while working in Dickinson, was to stay in a camper on the company property where I worked, or live in similar low cost housing.  Right now, I live with an older homeowner in Dickinson, in what is not a very ideal situation.  But I put up with very rough living conditions, in order to make money and save money.

The young women that I meet in Dickinson, housing is very important to them.  Ever since I came to Dickinson, housing has been extremely expensive, and good housing is scarce and highly sought after.  The young women here were completely willing to pay up to 60% of their income on housing, because it was the most important thing to them.  The most I ever paid here in Dickinson for housing, was 25% of my income, because housing here was not the most important thing to me.  The most important thing to me, was to pay all of my bills, especially things like property tax and insurance for my home in Idaho.

One of the biggest things that women here in Dickinson look for in a man, is his ability to pay for housing, and his ability to upgrade their housing situation.  How much money does he make, and how much of this money can he contribute to housing.  Women look at me, I’m not married and I don’t have any children, and they expect that I would be able to contribute 60% of my income to housing, like they have had to do.  They look at me, and think in their mind, that their $1,500 per month that they pay for housing, combined with the $2,000 per month that they can get from me for housing, would pay the rent on a nice house in Dickinson for the two of us.

There is no way that I would get on a joint and severally liable lease in Dickinson, for even $2,000 per month.  Right away, this would cause a huge conflict with a girlfriend.  Good housing is so important to women, that they would be outraged, and start to get very ugly about my unwillingness to spend as much as they wanted to on housing.  They would be thinking, and maybe even yelling, “Do you think that you are going to be with me for free and not have to pay!  I will just get somebody else who is willing to pay for me, you aren’t, you cheap piece of shit!”

I have been in the situation before, where I have had to move in the middle of a lease.  For my own apartment, I have had to give thirty days written notice, pay rent through the thirty days, plus pay one month rent as a penalty.  When I have been on a joint and severally liable lease with someone else, who wanted to remain in the house, I have had to pay my half of the rent for the remainder of the lease, in that instance it was five months.  Can you imagine being in Dickinson, not being able to get a job, and being on a one year lease for $2,000 to $3,000 per month, and your “Hot” girlfriend decides to leave you because you don’t have any money, and she is always getting propositioned every day by guys who do have money.  Leaving you solely responsible for the rent, even though it was her that insisted and required getting a place that cost $2,000 to $3,000 per month.

Right now, there are very few job openings in Dickinson. The jobs in Dickinson are also lower paying than they used to be, with much less overtime.  Working for any business or oil field company in Dickinson now, there is no guarantee that you will have your job next month.  I think that it would be a huge risk for anyone to try to have children in Dickinson now.  I think that it would be very careless and stupid.  I would never want to put my wife and children in a situation where we were unable to pay rent, pay utilities, pay bills, and buy groceries.

No matter who you think you are, and how much money you have been making over the last several years, most of the people in Dickinson can’t be certain that they will keep their job, or be able to find another job if they lose their job.  I have lived and worked in seven different states.  People think and tell themselves that if things get too bad, they will just move to another place to find work.  When you try to move from one place to another, you can be completely mistaken about the number and availability of jobs where you are moving.  Just because you move to some place that you think will be better, doesn’t mean that it will be better, it may in fact be worse, because of things you didn’t know or didn’t account for.

So having children now in Dickinson would be a mistake, because you don’t know if you will be able to keep your job, or find a replacement job.  And, there is no where in the United States that is having a boom right now, where you can go to work and send money back to your family.

Living and working in Dickinson for five years now, there hasn’t been many chances to meet likable women, because of the shortage of women, and scarcity of attractive women.  Now, one of the few times that I meet a woman that I really like, I have to decide to leave her alone, for both her sake and my sake.  Women want nice housing so bad, and I don’t want to pay what it costs here in Dickinson, especially because of uncertain employment.  Nor could I see getting married, settling down, and having children in Dickinson.  Living in Dickinson is just like doing time in prison, most of the normal things in life are absent.

 

The Hottest Girl In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , ,

If you go and read my blog post titled “List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson, North Dakota”, in that list I include women that are very beautiful, respectable, civil, and decent.  I consider many things about a woman before I include her on that list, in order to preserve the integrity of the list, and to not bring dis-honor to the other women on the list.

I have a high enough opinion of the women on my list of attractive women in Dickinson, that I would forgive each of them some transgressions, committed in the heat of the moment.  I would not condemn these women for following their heart, when their heart is true.  However, I don’t fear that any of these women on my list will persist in bad behavior for very long.

Being “Hot”, was not part of my criteria for being on my list of attractive women in Dickinson, though a few of these women just happen to be.  It was not supposed to be that kind of a list.  Being beautiful, respectable, civil, and decent, that is what I was looking for.

A woman being “Hot” is not something that is important to me, or something that I want.  I would not want, or like, my girlfriend or wife constantly getting all kinds of unwanted attention.  This would cause all kinds of problems and conflict for both myself and my wife or girlfriend.  For instance, I would not want my girlfriend or wife being propositioned all day, every day, everywhere she went.  I would not like this, and hopefully she would not like this either.

The women on my list of attractive women in Dickinson that just happen to be Hot, they do a pretty good job of toning down their hotness by dressing and behaving very modestly.  I admire them for this, and think that this is very considerate of them.  Not distracting men and causing car accidents, men to fall off of roofs, or fights.

I don’t want to reward women for being Hot.  I would like to discourage women from being Hot.  And I don’t want one.  I don’t want to deal with the problems of having a hot girlfriend.  Just when you start to get attached, they get taken away from you.

However, I have become more and more distracted by a woman in Dickinson who is about 30 years old, her name is Mary.  Before I ever saw her or met her, people would ask me if I had met her yet.  These people that asked me this, told me that I would like her.

I heard about her for six months before I ever saw her.  I did not expect to ever see her, because I was told that she had moved away.  Then one day, a young lady walked by me very quickly in about half a second, and I knew that had to be her.  In about half a second, I knew that everything that people had described about her, was true.

She has medium length black hair, she is thin, about 5′-8″, she has an athletically muscular build, and long legs.  She is funny, and funny acting.  She is quirky.  She dresses very interestingly.  From unusual shoes, vintage jeans, neat T-shirts, and funny behavior, she is very interesting, animated, and entertaining.  I like her.  She cheers me up.  I look forward to seeing her.

She has a fiancee, supposedly.  That doesn’t surprise me.  When no one was around, I told her that I liked her, I thought that she was pretty, and that I liked the way she dressed.  I was telling her this to get this off my chest, and to warn her that I liked her.  She acted nonchalant about this, but I could tell that she appreciated my compliment.

I tried to stay away from her mostly, especially because she has a fiancee.  Then, now that it is warm outside, she got a tan, and she walked up to me wearing tight jeans and a tight tank top that wouldn’t stay pulled down all the way, showing her stomach and lower back, and I could no longer stay away from her.  I followed after her, after thinking about it for about forty-five seconds, I had to, I couldn’t help it.

I had thought that she was funny, quirky, animated, entertaining, and pretty.  I had not fully noticed how big her breasts were, how small her waist was, and what nice hips and bottom she had, until she wore those tight jeans and tight tank top that wouldn’t go down all the way.  I suppose that she wanted me to see and wanted me to notice, that is why she came up to me.

I followed after her and caught up to her because this is something that I felt that I had to do.  I have been living in Dickinson, North Dakota for almost five years, and there is a shortage of women and a scarcity of attractive women.  Just once, or just one more time, I wanted to go and look at and see a “Hot” beautiful woman.  Myself, and any other person that saw her that day, would have agreed that she was probably the hottest girl in Dickinson.  I just hadn’t known it.  She let me know.  So now I know, that in addition to her being funny, entertaining, and pretty, besides that, she is the hottest girl in Dickinson.

As I explained in a previous blog post titled “Reasons Why I Can’t, Couldn’t, Wouldn’t Marry Codi, Kit, Kaycee, Marinna, or Kristi”, I don’t want to mess things up and ruin things for any of the women that I like.  I could not stand it, knowing that I messed up the life of some woman that I liked, after she trusted me, believed in me, was counting on me, and depending on me.  I don’t want to mess Mary’s life up, and that is the only thing that I see happening, but I can’t help liking her and wanting her.

Now that I have thought about it some more, the women on my list of attractive women in Dickinson, I like them, and I have a good opinion of them.  Some of them I look forward to seeing, I think about them, and I want them.  But I would just rather keep it that way, to like them, look forward to seeing them, to think about them, and to want them, rather than trying to seduce them and having some kind of disaster.

Only Seven Jobs Posted This Week On North Dakota Job Services In Dickinson

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,

On Friday April 21, I received a comment to one of my blog posts from a 31 year old local woman in Dickinson, North Dakota.  This woman was from a local family that had lived in Dickinson for several generations.  She had graduated from the private Catholic Trinity High School in Dickinson.  She later married a man who came to Dickinson from out of state to work here during the oil boom, and she later became divorced from him, though he still lives here in Dickinson.

I could not find a woman who is a more perfect representation of local women in Dickinson, coming from a family who has lived here for several generations, being Catholic, and having graduated from Trinity High School, and making the comment, “The oilfield is not dying it’s picking up.  Companies can’t find enough workers to fill all the open positions.”

No matter how many articles I write exposing the lies and misinformation in Dickinson, North Dakota, that are spread in attempt to lure people here to take advantage of them, the local people persist in spreading these lies and misinformation.  “This oil boom is going to last for the next twenty years.”  “Everyone is making $100,000 per year in the oil field.”  And, “The oilfield is not dying it’s picking up.  Companies can’t find enough workers to fill all the open positions.”

This week in Dickinson, North Dakota, for the entire week, from Friday of last week to the end of the day on Friday of this week, North Dakota Job Services posted a total of seven new jobs this week.  Seven new jobs!  For the entire week!

April is the busiest time of the year in Dickinson for new employment.  Dickinson goes through a cold and snowy winter where a lot of outdoor work is postponed, and then there is a rush in April to hire workers for companies to get their work done in the Spring and Summer.  In 2011 through 2013 in Dickinson, during the spring, there were typically thirty to forty new jobs posted each week on North Dakota Job Services.  Then in 2014 through 2015, there were typically twenty to thirty new jobs posted each week on North Dakota Job Services.  This week there were seven!  A huge drop in new job postings!

It wasn’t just North Dakota Job Services in Dickinson.  For the month of April 2017, for the entire month up until April 21 on the website CareerBuilder, there were only five new jobs posted for Dickinson, if you don’t include enlisting in the National Guard.  Only five new jobs, for the entire month of April, on CareerBuilder for Dickinson!

Several years ago on the website CareerBuilder for Dickinson, North Dakota, there would have been approximately one hundred new jobs posted during the month of April.  For most towns the size of Dickinson not any where near the oil field, these towns probably had more new jobs posted in April than Dickinson’s five new job postings.

The local Catholic people here keep lying to everyone to try to get them to come to Dickinson, North Dakota so that they can rip them off on housing, and try to take advantage of them with their evil schemes and plans.  But people will quit coming once they find out that there are no jobs in Dickinson.

The businesses here in Dickinson will begin closing, one after another.  The commercial warehouses and industrial buildings will become vacant.  People will abandon their homes in order to get out of Dickinson.  Then the Catholics will begin killing each other and practicing cannibalism.  They will all get what is coming to them.

Don’t worry about me, I will leave before the cannibalism starts.

Mormonism Research Ministries

Uncategorized, , , ,

A few days ago, I wrote two blog posts about children in Dickinson, North Dakota.  The WordPress internet website hosting company, listed my website as a recommendation to read.  A very beautiful young lady from Utah “Liked” my blog post about children in Dickinson.  When I saw her photograph, I knew that she was Mormon because of the special kind of radiance and flawless beauty that she had.

I felt sorry for her, because I know what Mormon women have to go through.  Their parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, other relatives, neighbors, teachers, and the Mormon church, all nurture, guide, push, instruct, and reinforce them to believe, act, and behave in a certain way.  Correction is immediate.  Deviation is not permitted.  Punishment is unbelievable.

Mormon girls must be honest, truthful, dedicated, hardworking, polite, kind, friendly, pleasant, healthy, and attractive.  Any deviation from this is immediately noticed, reported, and corrected.

Who notices, who reports this, and to whom?  Siblings, friends, relatives, other adults, report improper behavior to teachers, parents, or the Bishop.  What do I mean by correction and punishment?  Each parent individually, both parents together, the Bishop, ask the young lady what was she doing, what was she thinking, why was she doing this, does she know that this was wrong?  The questioning and listening is serious, the young woman knows this serious.  The parents or the Bishop make an assessment about the seriousness of the violation, what the consequences and punishment will be.

Besides normal punishment from the parents, like not getting some item they wanted, not getting to do something they wanted, not getting to go somewhere they wanted, the Bishop may decide that this young lady will absolutely be denied in the future if she ever requests to serve on a mission, or to be married in the Temple in Salt Lake City, because she is a “bad” girl.

The unmarried young men and women go to a separate church service, so that the older prominent members of the church, can decide and direct who will marry who.  A bank president who contributes a great deal of money to the church, even if his son is a fat, stupid, dork, the church will make arrangements for this son to have a very beautiful good young Mormon woman for a wife.  And if there happens to be a very handsome young man from a successful Mormon family, the Bishop is not about to let a “bad” Mormon girl marry him.  It is the Bishop’s job, to remember who all the “bad” Mormon girls are, and make sure that they don’t get married, at least not to any young man the church cares about.  It would be better if the “bad” Mormon girls just went far far away and never came back and were never spoken of again, lest they pollute and foul the purity of the other members.

I wrote a blog post a day ago titled, “What Should I Do About Mormon Women”.  In that blog post, I wrote that in 2007, I moved to an area of Idaho that was 70% Mormon.  I didn’t mind that the Mormons were strong believers in staying married, focusing on their families, not using alcohol or drugs.  I was amazed at how beautiful and friendly the young Mormon women were.

I realized within a couple of months of moving to Idaho, that I was not getting hired for a good job in Idaho because I was not Mormon.  This was the first time in my life that I was so blatantly discriminated against.  I began to see that the Mormons were happy and cheerful because they had good jobs, and that the non-Mormons were an underclass of people in this area of Idaho.  I began to see a dark side of Mormonism, that the Mormons weren’t so nice after all.

I went to a Mormon church with a friend of mine, to see what Mormonism was about.  In the men’s study group, they read, “…and just as God evolved, we too can evolve to become like God, and be gods of our own planet one day.”  This was the most bizarre and outrageous thing that I had heard in my entire life.  This was blasphemous in three different ways, implying that God was not perfect, that we could evolve to become like God, and that we could be god of our own planet one day.

I said that I could not got to their church anymore.  What was I supposed to do, deny God, and go along with them in order to get ahead?

I learned more about the Mormon church, Mormon practices, Mormon culture, and Mormon women as I continued to live in Idaho.  There was not a lot of crime, it was peaceful, there was not much going on.  I liked living there, but I never could get a good job.  It made me angry sometimes that I was not doing well financially, because I was denied a good job.  All I had to do was pretend to have a change of heart and want to join their church.

I wondered how many people in Idaho were pretending to believe in Mormonism just to get ahead.  I wondered how women could pretend to believe in Mormonism.  It taught that men could evolve to become like God, and be god of their own planet one day, but it didn’t say this about women.  Women were treated as inferior from everything that I could see and learn.  Women were supposed to be subservient.  Though polygamy was not practiced openly, the mindset of polygamy was still around.  The purpose of women was to bear children and serve men.

As I was writing my blog post “What Should I Do About Mormon Women”, I was feeling sorry for Mormon women.  But I became sorry for myself about what I had lived through.  My education as an engineer, and my work experience as an engineer, estimator, superintendent, project manager, and inspector was treated as worthless by the Mormon employers, and I became the poorest I had been since graduating from college.

Soon after I published my blog post “What Should I Do About Mormon Women”, I received a comment from a Mormon man named Shem Atwater.  Shem wrote, don’t worry, Mormon women aren’t left out of the becoming god of your own planet, they are included, and Mormon women are perfectly fine with their role in evolving and becoming a goddess.  I had never heard that women were included in evolving and becoming a goddess.

I read Shem Atwater’s website about Mormonism for about one hour.  I became more upset and discouraged when I read page after page of discussion on:  was God married, was Jesus married, did Jesus have more than one wife, did Jesus have children, was Lucifer the brother of Jesus, the Garden of Eden was in Missouri, and on and on.  Apparently when the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants are all sources of fact and information, you can examine all of these questions and more.

Finally, I found some of Shem Atwater’s discussions on a website called “Mormon Coffee”.  If you know anything about Mormons, you know that they can’t drink coffee, so what was this website?  This website had 1,200 blog posts, and 52,000 discussions on Mormonism.  The website was created by several husband and wife couples, whose lifelong career was to explain the discrepancies between Mormonism and Christianity.  Thank God.  They do a much better job than I could.

After the website “Mormon Coffee” had been going for more than ten years, they created a website called “Mormonism Research Ministries” which is much more extensive and exhaustive in explaining the differences between Mormonism and Christianity.

For those of you who don’t know, if you are a Christian, you believe that Jesus was the only son of God, who came to earth, was without sin, was without temptation, who was crucified on the cross, and ascended to heaven.  When you start saying that Jesus was on earth having sex with women, you are implying that he had lust that he was unable to control, and that his purpose in coming to earth was something other than the salvation of mankind, the whole basis of Christianity.  When you start saying that God evolved, you are implying that God is imperfect.  When you start saying that man can evolve to become like God you are again implying that God is not a supreme being, because we can become like God.  These are some very important differences, that if you believe, you are denying Jesus, and you are denying God.

The Mood Right Now In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

Right now, it is the middle of April 2017.  After a long and cold winter, it appeared that it was going to warm up, and the sun was going to come out.  This past week, I tried several times to sit out in the sun on the back porch wearing shorts and no shirt, in order to try to get a tan.  I look better and I feel better when I have a sun tan.  Even though the clouds came, the wind picked up every day, and the temperature sometimes dropped into the 50s during the day, I still got a tan.

Through the winter, I had been going to the West River Community Center several times each week to walk and run the indoor track.  In between laps, or after all my laps were completed, I would do six sets of pull ups, sit ups, or push ups.  My physical condition is about the same or better than it was when I was 10 years old, 16 years old, or 26 years old.  Sometimes I do feel physically older though, partly because I am heavier, and partly because I have less energy.

Because it is Spring, because I have been exercising and my health is good, and because I don’t have a wife or any children, I feel about the same as when I was 10 years old, 16 years old, or 26 years old.  I am looking forward to riding my mountain bike, going kayaking, and going to the beach.

Sometimes at night I go to a bar or restaurant in Dickinson in order to get out of the house where I live in Dickinson.  The owner of the house is about twelve years older than me, but he acts like he is in his eighties because his attitude, outlook, mental health, and physical health is so bad.  His complaining, whining, drinking, and acting like an old man starts to suck the life right out of me, and I have to get away.

I feel much better when I leave the house at night to go somewhere.  However, my good mood in getting out of the house, and it being Spring, is brought down when I get to where I am going in Dickinson.  I was used to everyone being in a glum mood this winter because it was so cold and grey.  For the past couple of weeks, when the weather has been much nicer, when I met people that were in a bad mood, I attributed it to these people having problems.

However, for the past week, when I have gone to a particular bar and restaurant, I have noticed that everyone, both the employees and the customers, are in a bad mood.  I have met some high school girls, some young women that recently got engaged, some that recently got married, and some that recently got divorced, and they are all in a bad mood.  I am sick of all these women being in a bad mood, and being no fun at all.

I know some of these women, and every one of them seems like their problems overwhelm them.  Both the customers and the employees, the young women and the older women, seem like their problems have eliminated any fun, joy, and happiness in their lives.  What they have in common, is that they all appear to be scared.  They appear to be scared about money and employment.

They are scared about money and employment, regarding themselves, their boyfriends, their fiancees, their husbands, and their ex-husbands.  They have on their mind, are they going to stay at the job they have now, are they going to make enough money, will they lose their job, will their hours be cut, will they stay in the same apartment, will they lose their apartment, will they leave Dickinson, will their boyfriend, fiancee, or husband leave Dickinson to work elsewhere?

I have known, and have been writing for a year and a half, that the oil boom is over in Dickinson, North Dakota.  I have been writing for a year and a half, what the history of oil booms in North Dakota has been.  The oil booms last for about seven years, then they go away for about twenty-five years.  I have described over and over again, that the land owners and property owners gouged all of the out of state workers so bad on housing, raising housing prices 400% to 500%, that all of the out of state workers made up their minds that they were going to leave North Dakota as soon as the oil boom was over.

I guess that this prevailing bad mood in everyone in Dickinson now, is the realization in everyone that they are going to have enormous financial problems.

Imagine this, when everyone was employed in Dickinson, and working overtime, they went and rented the apartment they could afford, bought the house they could afford, bought the vehicle they could afford, and bought the jewelry or toys they could afford.  They didn’t buy less than what they could afford, they spent up to the limit of what they could afford.  Now when people have lost their job, or are working reduced hours, how are they going to pay for everything?  What are they going to lose, and when?

Some of the people that are here now in Dickinson, moved here from Michigan, Oregon, or Idaho just a few years ago because they went broke or were nearly broke in the state where they came from.  After two years of getting back on their feet financially a little bit at a time, they can now see their financial downfall coming again.

I am not in a bad mood now, because I have been angry and disgusted at Dickinson all along, for the past six years, ever since I first came here.  I have written over three hundred blog posts complaining about Dickinson.  Every time something bad happens to me in Dickinson, I write a blog post, sometimes two blog posts a day, and then I feel better.  I saw all of this coming.  In fact, something that cheers me up, and makes me want to stay in Dickinson, is the chance to see everyone in Dickinson get what is coming to them.

Why Do I Even Care About Children In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

In my previous blog post, I wrote about my concern over not seeing children playing in Dickinson, North Dakota.  I do see that about 10% to 15% of the families in Dickinson do sign their kids up for, and drop their kids off at soccer, hockey, basketball, swimming, baseball, and tennis.  It is good that these families get their children involved in sports and activities.  I would say that these same families probably keep close watch over how their kids are doing in school, and what they are doing after school.

Unfortunately, outside of the small percentage of children that get dropped off at after school athletic practice, I don’t see children playing anywhere in Dickinson.  In my previous blog post, I gave many lists of reasons why children aren’t outside playing in Dickinson.  To simplify the reasons, it comes down to the fact that mothers and fathers are struggling with time, money, and energy, and it is easier for them to have their children stay inside where nothing can happen to them, they won’t get hurt, and they won’t get into trouble.

However in Dickinson, this is the worst that I have ever seen things for children.  One of the reasons why things may be the worst for children, is probably because about half of the families with children have lived here for five years or less.  These parents that moved here for the oil boom, they don’t have grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, for their children to spend time with and do activities with.  Especially parents from the South, they probably don’t mix very well with the local people, and their children probably have some trouble in school getting along with local children.

That’s what is going on, but why do I care?  In Dickinson, to put it politely, the adult local people here are the most hostile, unfriendly, uncooperative, unhelpful, narrow minded, ignorant, uneducated, primitive people that I have ever seen.  I don’t want the local children to turn out like their parents.  I don’t want the out of state children to grow up and be like the local people here.

I would like to see the children in Dickinson outside colonizing vacant lots and building forts with scavenged material and found junk.  I would like to see them building tree houses.  I would like to see them outside exploring drainage ditches, canals, old barns, old bridges, and woods.  I would like to see them using their imagination, following their curiosity, developing an appreciation for adventure, enjoying exploring new things.  Knowing that it is O.K. to have fun, to have adventure, to dream and use their imagination.

I don’t want the children here to turn out like their parents, kept down, kept ignorant, kept uneducated, scared of everything new, scared to try anything new, and sour about everything that is new, foreign, or unfamiliar.  The adult local people in Dickinson remain fixed in their ways partly because of their own fear, and partly out of being conditioned to reject education, new ideas, and new ways of doing things.

Some examples:

  • I met a local man in his 70s, who was walking for exercise in the T-Rex Mall, which is about 150 feet long and 25 feet wide inside.  I talked to him about the West River Community Center which has an indoor lap track that is 1,000 feet long.  I explained that there are many older people who go there to exercise, to walk the track, to use the indoor pool, to use all the different kinds of exercise equipment.  This older gentleman was just too scared to go to the West River Community Center.  I know two other older local men, one 60 years old, and one 66 years old, and they are both too scared to go to the West River Community Center, even though they are both lonely and interested in meeting women.
  • I know more than several local people in Dickinson who are very interested in history and rodeo, but they have never been to the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in Medora, some of them have never even heard of it.  I explained that the downstairs is a museum of North Dakota history, with old photographs, old tools, old clothes, old firearms, and old wagons.  They are interested, but they are too scared to go, even though it is only about fifty miles to the west on the interstate.
  • I have met several local people who never learned how to swim.  They would like to go boating on Patterson Lake or the Missouri River, but they have never been boating in their life.  They believe that if they were even fishing from the bank on Patterson Lake, they would drown if they fell in.  They probably would, because they are so scared of drowning and swimming is such a mystery to them that they can’t understand how to do it.
  • I hired a local person to come to work with me in Watford City.  This local person is almost 60 years old, and he has lived in Dickinson his whole life.  The last time he had been through Watford City was about ten years ago, though he had been to Watford City many times in his life.  The town of Watford City is about 1/2 mile wide by 1/2 mile long, with about 10,000 people.  In the first week, he got lost three times in Watford City, once while he was following me.  Twice he became very upset because he was so disoriented and confused. One of these times I was able to give him directions on the phone, the other time I had to go and get him.
  • A very good location for fishing, camping, and getting away from people is Cedar Dam Reservoir which is about six miles south of New England.  There is a sign for Cedar Dam Reservoir on Highway 22.  This would be an excellent place for high school students to take their girlfriends, because there is hardly ever anyone there, and there are miles of places to park on public land.  I asked one of the wildest New England girls if she had been to Cedar Dam Reservoir, and she had never heard of it, or been there.  I asked many local people who fish, if they had been to Cedar Dam Reservoir, some of them have never heard of it, most of them have never been there, though it is only about 35 miles south of Dickinson off Highway 22.

In the examples that I gave above, I was trying to explain that I have only lived in Dickinson for less than five years, but I have been many places not far from Dickinson, that lifelong residents of Dickinson have never been to, or even heard of.  This should not be.  They have been brought up and conditioned to believe that what they know, is all they need to know, they don’t need to know anything else.  That what they don’t know, is not worth knowing.  They have also been brought up and conditioned to not go looking for anything else, there is nothing else, and they need to stay right where they are, or something bad will happen.

The point of this blog post, was to explain that I don’t want children in Dickinson to be scared or unaccustomed to getting out, exploring, playing, having fun, taking risks, seeking adventure, and trying new things.  I don’t want them to turn out like the adult local people here.

Concern About Children In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , ,

Approximately one year ago, I wrote a blog post titled “Children Do Not Play In Dickinson, North Dakota.”  In that blog post I wrote that I hardly ever see children playing in Dickinson.  I don’t see them in the street, in their yards, or in their neighborhoods throwing balls, rocks, frisbees, boomerangs, or spears.  I don’t see them riding bicycles, jumping ramps, building ramps, building forts, or building tree houses.  I don’t see them walking to convenience stores or grocery stores to buy candy or soda.

I wondered why I don’t see children playing, like children used to play when I was a kid.  I will give a few reasons that I could think of why children don’t play in Dickinson:

  1.   Both the mother and father work, and they have instructed their children, “Come straight home after school, get off the school bus and go right in the house, do not leave the house, do not go outside, do not break anything, do not get hurt.  Your mother and father can’t leave work to respond to an emergency, so don’t make us lose our jobs.”
  2.  The mother and father are struggling financially, they are very scared of hospital and medical bills, and they are always telling their children, “Get out of that tree, don’t climb that tree, get off the roof, get down from the roof, you stay away from that river, you stay away from that lake, get out of the street, don’t play in the street, stay away from those kids, I don’t want you playing with those kids, I don’t want you riding your bicycle, I don’t want you playing football……We can’t afford for you to get hurt.”
  3.   I have seen some parents, especially women, that think everything their children do is a nuisance, and they try to eliminate everything, “I don’t want you making a mess, I don’t want you getting dirty, I don’t want you ruining your clothes, I don’t want you getting hurt, I don’t want to take you there, I don’t want to come and get you, I don’t want you going over there, I don’t want them coming over here, I can’t afford that, we don’t have the money for that, I’m not wasting money on that.”

There is a small percentage of families in Dickinson, where the parents think that it is important for their children to do things, and they are able to spend some money on their children, and they have the time to drop their kids off and pick them up from cub scouts, boy scouts, girl scouts, soccer practice, swimming practice, hockey practice, tennis lessons, or music lessons.  Maybe 10% to 15% of families in Dickinson do this with their children.

I feel bad for the other 85% of children in Dickinson, that stay inside, mostly because they are instructed to do so by their parents.  As I already described in the numbered lists above, their parents don’t want them getting hurt or getting into any kind of trouble.

At the West River Community Center in Dickinson, which is one of the nicest gym facilities in the United States, 10% to 15% of the parents in Dickinson drop their kids off for swimming practice, basketball practice, or hockey practice.  About another 10% of the families in Dickinson encourage their children to go to the West River Community Center on their own.  But this still leaves about 75% of the children in Dickinson staying inside at home.

I am concerned about 75% of the children in Dickinson staying inside at home.  This is not good for a number of reasons.  They are not getting enough exercise, they are not developing strength, stamina, agility, balance, confidence, and learning their own abilities.  I don’t think that things should be like this, especially because Dickinson has so much open space.

In many areas of the country, they used to have summer programs.  Some summer programs were organized and sponsored by the Parks & Recreation Department, some were sponsored by churches, and some were “Outward Bound” programs.

Before any readers start complaining, “They already have the cub scouts, girl scouts, boy scouts, and little league baseball in Dickinson”, you have got to remember that only 10% to 15% of families in Dickinson participate in these organizations, for various reasons.  Some of the reasons for non-participation include the requirement/expectation to be at every meeting/practice, penalization for not being at meetings/practice, competitiveness, politics, favoritism, and lack of enjoyment by non-athletic children.

I am concerned about the 75% of children in Dickinson that stay inside at home, and are not participating in scouts, team sports, lessons, or the West River Community Center.  I want to talk about the possibilities for other summer programs.

This past summer, I was having a discussion with a well known Dickinson musician named “Boston Steve”, who is in his sixties, and moved here from Portland, Maine in 2014 with his wife Melissa.  I was talking about Patterson Lake, and how nice it was that Dickinson has this lake right in the city.  Boston Steve said, that he had to proposed to some people, having about ten Sunfish sailboats at Patterson Lake to teach kids how to sail in the summer.  He said that he would volunteer for free, if someone would provide the boats.  I thought that this was an excellent idea.

When Boston Steve was a kid, and when I was kid, I used to go sailing quite often.  Sometimes on larger boats with other people, but also by myself on two-person boats.  These were some of the best times in my life.  On a nice warm day as a kid, I could not wait to get to the water, to put the mast, rudder, and centerboard on a boat, to wade out into the water with it, to jump in, and silently and effortlessly take off going 5 mph to 10  mph, without having to peddle or paddle!

Boston Steve was not an uptight asshole, a drill sergeant, or a coach like some youth activity directors.  All he was talking about was having kids sign up, giving them all swimming lessons, and having every one of them wear life jackets.  Teaching them in a friendly manner, knowing that all the kids couldn’t wait to get in the water and get in a boat.  And at first, not allowing anyone to go past the rope line and buoys.  He would not have had many demands, rules, or expectations.  It was for fun, not a competition.

The sailing would not have to cost the kids or their families anything.  It would be nice if a city transit bus, or another transit service could pick the kids up and drop them off.

If you can have a sailing class for kids in the summer, you can also have a horseback riding class in the summer, and also a hiking class on local buttes.  Every week, the hiking class could climb a different local butte.

The Dickinson Summer Outdoor Recreation Program Schedule could be:

Mon. 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon……….Kids Rock Climbing Wall Class at WRCC

Tue. 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon…………Kids Sailing Class at Patterson Lake

Wed. 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon……….Kids Horseback Riding Class at Fairgrounds

Thu. 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon…………Kids Sailing Class at Patterson Lake

Fri. 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m……………….*Kids Butte Climb (new location each week)

Sat. 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon…………..*Kids Mountain Bike (new location each week)

*Parents welcome to climb or ride along.

What would the costs be?  Let us say that each class requires two WRCC personnel, in addition to an unpaid volunteer or two.  14 hours of classes x 2 employees x $30/ hour = $840 per week.  (I use $30 to account for the wage, plus payroll taxes, plus workers comp., plus overhead).  12 weeks x $840 = $10,080.  This is the labor cost for the summer.

What do the horses cost?  Could someone provide 6 to 8 horses with saddles for two hours, once a week for $500?  12 week x $500 = $6,000.

What do the Sunfishes or equal cost?  Used ones, about $500 to $1,000 each.  10 x $800 avg. each = $8,000 one time cost.  Twenty-five life jacket = $1,000 one time cost.

What do the Mountain Bikes and BMX Bikes cost?  They cost just about nothing if you take what the City of Dickinson Police Department has in lost and stolen bicycles.  I have bought five of these bicycles for $25 each, and they don’t cost a lot to fix.  There are about fifty for sale at the Dickinson Public Auction each summer.  The inmates at the jail could fix them.  Tires, tubes, and twenty five helmets = $1,000.

Of course, of course there has to be liability insurance to cover the liability of Rock Climbing Wall class, Sailing class, Horseback Riding Class, Butte Hiking class, and Mountain Bike riding class.  What would this insurance cost be, $10,000 each summer?

Labor Cost……………$10,080

Horses…………………..$6,000

Bicycles………………..$1,000

Insurance……………..$10,000

Total = $27,080 per summer

The sailboats and life jackets would be a one time cost of $9,000.

Where does the money come from, this $27,000 per summer?  Many activities in Dickinson, such as the downtown summer concerts, raise more money than this through donations and sponsors.

The Theodore Roosevelt Airport, West River Community Center, WRCC Hockey Center, Beisiot Activities Center, St. Joseph’s Hospital, other facilities, and projects were funded through private donations.  It should be a goal of the Dickinson Parks & Recreation Department, to seek to create a charitable trust with the help of private individuals, to permanently fund summer recreation programs for children in Dickinson.  Old people like children, they don’t have anything against the poor little children.  Just a $1 million endowment, could permanently fund a $30,000 summer program.  But you would continue to seek donations to keep growing this fund.

The Haunting Of The New St. Alexius Hospital In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

The new St. Alexius Hospital in Dickinson, North Dakota, was completed by the end of 2014.  But before the hospital was even completed, the haunting began.

Because the hospital was owned and operated by the Catholic Church, I felt that it was significant and important that I let the upper management know that something was wrong, and that it needed to be addressed.  However, upper management were such arrogant assholes, I was unable to tell them.  I will tell everyone now, maybe it will do some good.

Not long after the east end of the new hospital was completed, the three story section of the hospital, an employee came to me who was upset, they had something on their mind that was bothering them.  In a round about way, they began to ask me if I had ever seen anything in the 3rd story window on the north side of the building.  I was blunt and slightly irritated, and I said no, wishing that they would just get to the point.  The employee was upset, and they continued, saying that they had seen what looked like a person hanging in the window on the 3rd floor.  I asked, what do you mean, hanging out the window?  The employee replied no, hanging, like someone had hung themself.  The employee said that they went inside the building and checked this room, but there was nothing in this room.  I disregarded what this employee said.

About two weeks later, a second employee was upset, and they came to me and began to ask me in a round about way, if I had ever seen anything odd in the building.  I said, like what?  This second employee, continued, asking if I had seen anything odd or unusual.  I replied that no I had not.  I was wondering why people were wasting my time and would not get to the point.

About one or two weeks after this, the first employee who came to me, and the second employee who came to me, were in a meeting with me, and the first employee said to the second employee, “Have you ever seen anything odd in the building?”  The second employee said, “Like what?”  The first employee said, “Like someone hanging in the window?”  The second employee said, “Oh my God yes, third floor, third window from the end!”  The first employee said, “Oh my God, yes!”

They were both greatly relieved that they were not the only one seeing a person hanging in the window.  They had both gone inside the building and gone to this room to see if there was someone hanging from the ceiling in this room, but there was nothing in this room, it was empty.  There were no ladders, lamps, window blinds, or anything in this room.  Nor was there anything on the walls.  Neither of these two employees wanted to work at this site anymore, and one of them would not come back.

I checked this room myself, there was nothing in this room at this time, and nothing on any of the walls.  I don’t know what could have caused two different employees to see on separate occasions, what they were convinced was a person hanging by their neck in this room.  They each checked the room themselves after the incident, and found nothing in the room.  The two employees were upset about it.

I no longer dismissed this as meaningless.  I checked to see if there had been any fatalities during construction, and there had been none reported.  I began to wonder if this wasn’t an image of some event that had not occurred yet.  Was there something that would happen during construction?  When the hospital was completed, this would be an examination room, would some tragedy happen then?

I wanted to describe these events to the hospital administrators that were involved with the completion of construction, so that they could make their own assessment of whether this was some kind of omen about a future event that could possibly be averted, but like I said already, they were such arrogant assholes, there was no telling them anything.  Maybe telling it now, and making it known, will maybe help avoid a tragedy.

Old St. Joseph’s Hospital In Dickinson, The Most Haunted Place In North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

Several websites credit the Old St. Joseph’s Hospital in Dickinson, as being the most haunted place in North Dakota.  I agree with this, and I have some stories to tell.

The original 40 room St. Joseph’s Hospital was built in Dickinson in 1911, on 7th Street, several blocks east of Main Avenue.  In 1912, six Sisters from the Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross in Switzerland came to Dickinson to staff the St. Joseph’s Hospital.  Additions to the facility took place in 1931, 1951, 1966, 1983, and 2000.  The Sisters ran the hospital until approximately 1987.  In 2014, the Old St. Joseph’s Hospital was closed, and the new hospital was opened about one mile to the west.

According to the website http://www.hauntedplaces.org, “Employees have reported ghostly activity from many different areas at this hospital. The elevator to the morgue runs up and down by itself; moaning and voices are heard in the cafeteria; and call buttons are activated from empty rooms. Laughing and the sound of running footsteps have been reported in the basement.”  Yes, this summation is true, I have heard this from the employees that were there.

Due to the Old St. Joseph’s Hospital, and the new St. Alexius Hospital being operated by a Catholic organization, the administrators discourage employees from talking about what happened at the Old St. Joseph’s Hospital, and what happened at the new St. Alexius Hospital.  The Catholic Church discourages recounting experiences with ghosts, apparitions, disembodied spirits, and demons, both because they think that it discomforts people, and that acknowledging these spirits and demons gives them more power.

I was able to find old employees that would talk about what they saw.  I will give you one of their stories:

Approximately twenty-five years ago, an old local farmer checked in to the Old St. Joseph’s Hospital in Dickinson.  He was approximately 75 years old.  He was well known and recognized by most of the nurses and staff, being a life long resident of Dickinson.  He was a strong and determined man, having worked his whole life as a farmer.  But now, his health was failing, he now had a serious illness.  He was in a room on the third floor, if I remember correctly.

A doctor had seen the old farmer when he had been admitted to the hospital on the first day.  The old farmer remained in the hospital for a second day, and a third day.  On approximately the third night of his stay, at approximately 10 p.m., the old farmer emerged from his hospital room, fully dressed.  He walked up to the nurse at the nurses’ station, who he knew, and he had a brief conversation saying, “Well, I have had enough, I am getting out of here, I am going to go ahead and leave.”  The nurse who knew him, she knew this was just like him, stubborn and determined.  If he was well enough to get up out of bed, get dressed, and walk out there telling her he was going to leave, she wasn’t going to try to stop him.  She said O.K., bye.

About ten minutes later, a second nurse that had been making rounds to each of the rooms, came from the old farmer’s room, and said that he had just died.  The nurse at the nurses’ station said, “That can’t be, he just came up to the nurses’ station dressed and ready to leave, he told me he was leaving, and he walked down the hall and he left.”  The nurse at the nurses’ station thought that there must be some kind of mistake, she had to go check the old farmer’s room to see for herself, and she saw that he had died in his bed.  She had had a conversation with the old farmer and watched him walk away, after he had died.

Perhaps in my next blog post, I will tell an even spookier tale, that happened at the new St. Alexius Hospital.