Tag Archives: Living in Dickinson, North Dakota

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Survivalists In Western North Dakota

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Regarding people who stockpile food, water, medicine, guns, ammunition, fuel, generators, etcetera in preparation for a coming disaster or martial law, the comedian Eddie Murphy once said, “That’s real good, unless you’re not home when something happens.”.   That’s where I am at. I had all that stuff back in Idaho, but I’m not there. I’m here working in Dickinson and Watford City.

Some of my friends in Dickinson had a survivalist mind set. We would go camping in the summer, and discuss politics, the future outlook, economic survival, preparations, and other things related to survival. Early on in the survival movement, people focused on supplies, and having everything they thought they might need. As time went on, men who had been in wars, disasters, and prison, began to point out that having supplies might only be 30% of the problem. What you would mostly need in order to survive, would be to understand what would actually happen in your environment in a disaster.

As worried panicked people went to the local stores, due to long lines, shelves emptying, ATMs being out of money, people would just take what they could carry and leave. Within about a day, all stores would be empty of merchandise, with no intention of re-stocking. Probably about 15% of the population in Dickinson, and about 20% of the population in Watford City are men who are workers, who have not really set up a home with a full pantry, they probably only have about a one week supply of food. Though some older residents in town, and some families in town in Dickinson and Watford City have cupboards and closets of food, the people in town would constantly be having to fight off and fight it out with all the single male workers who ran out of food.

The long time residents of Dickinson and Watford City that live in rural areas, have one of the most ideal survival situations. The rural areas of North Dakota are sparsely populated, there are not a lot of people wandering around, especially on one’s own property. There is hardly any bushes or trees, so people can’t sneak onto your property, or up to your house. The rural people already have their own well, septic system, and out house. They probably have their own generator, and have already learned how to survive when the power has gone out for a couple of weeks in the winter during a blizzard. For the people in rural North Dakota, life would return to the way it had been about sixty years ago, except for having to shoot white trash workers from the South every day, for a while.

A few other things that make Western North Dakota an ideal survival location. There are no over crowded inner cities anywhere near here. There would be no mass exodus of savages and gangs from the cities towards the rural areas. Because the landscape is so desolate, and barren, and because it gets so cold here, Western North Dakota would have very few homeless people wandering around in comparison to the other states.

A few tips. In order to make the World a better place for everyone, a World where 1% of the population doesn’t use 20% of the oil, a World where an individual farmer doesn’t personally own 3,000 acres, it may be necessary for the government to make some changes. So when FEMA sets up an emergency operations center at WalMart, and everybody needs to come on down and register, just to make sure you’re O.K., there’s free hot coffee and doughnuts, …don’t go, unless you’d like to live in a work camp in Oregon.

What People Are Like In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I first came to work in Dickinson in 2011, and stayed for eight months. I returned to Dickinson in 2013, and have been here since then. Altogether, I have lived in Dickinson for almost four years.

In most of the blog posts that I have written, I have stated that the local people in Dickinson are unfriendly, uncooperative, not helpful, that they dislike people from out of state, and that they dislike each other. I also wrote that in the past in Dickinson, people were unable to get ahead, and the only way they could feel like they were successful, was when somebody else failed, so they developed the practice of not helping people.

The four years that I lived in Dickinson, it seemed like every day I was faced with hostility, meanness, unfriendliness, lack of cooperation, unfairness, and always the threat of something bad happening. I wrote several times that if you wanted to know what living in Dickinson was like, you needed to watch the movies “The Grapes of Wrath”, “Deliverance”, and “Planet of the Apes”.

However, in 2015 I did write a blog post titled “A Different Side Of Dickinson”, where I described a completely positive experience doing self employed work for homeowners in Dickinson. I wrote that the homeowners were very positive and complimentary about my work, that many of them paid me more than I asked when I was done. Through word of mouth only, I have gotten about twelve contracting jobs.

I am continuing to see a different side of Dickinson through working directly for local homeowners. For one thing, there has been a complete lack of hostility, and instead politeness, helpfulness, and civility. I want to briefly describe a few experiences.

I worked for one of the wealthiest people in Dickinson, whose family was from Dickinson. He lived in a modest home, considering that he had long been way past being a millionaire. He and his wife were very pleasant, friendly, and there was not ever even the slightest bit of arrogance. When I see him around town, he says hello and talks to me.

I also have worked for homeowners in Dickinson, who worked for fifty years at low paying jobs, who have been pleasant, friendly, cooperative, and helpful. Recently, I worked for a homeowner in Dickinson who was in his seventies. He grew up on a farm outside of Dickinson. He explained to me how he, his brother, and his father used to have to dig with hand shovels, for $3 per day.

I have tried to explain several times in this blog, how poor the people in Western North Dakota had been prior to the oil booms. I wrote about it recently in “Farming And Ranching In Western North Dakota”, and in “Note To Jessie Vender, And Everybody”. What I want to explain and describe, is that it may have been the sudden drastic changes occurring during this last oil boom that may have led to the unfriendly, uncooperative, unhelpful, hostile behavior of some local people in Dickinson.

Having your apartment rent go from $300 per month to $1,500 per month in a two year period, or your house rent go from $600 per month to $3,000 per month, would make anyone angry and hostile. The local people in Dickinson who had been making $9 per hour at a local business for many years, became aware that oil field workers were starting out at $18 per hour, and were working many hours of overtime at $27 per hour. The sudden huge increase in housing prices, the large difference between what local people had been paid in comparison to what out-of-state oil field workers were paid, the tremendous increase in road traffic with aggressive out-of-state drivers, new businesses and development, I think that it all aggravated and angered the local residents, especially when they couldn’t see any personal benefit to them.

It may be that the people that I am doing self employed work for, they are all long time local homeowners, who did not experience the pain of having their rent quadruple. Maybe that is why they are friendly and helpful. I did want to write about this group of people, to explain that they have all been completely friendly.

However, I want to write again for about the tenth time, that there were property owners, property investors, and property managers who were extremely greedy, who tried to gouge and take advantage of everyone. What everyone who came to North Dakota will remember, was how cold it was, how absurdly high the rent was, and how they were taken advantage of.

 

Outlook For Dickinson, North Dakota

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I have stated that the purpose of this blog is to provide truthful, useful information about Dickinson, so that people from out of state can make an informed decision whether to move to Dickinson. I also want local people to consider what I write, to see what people from out of state experience in Dickinson.

Due to the current low price of oil, almost all oil well drilling has stopped in North Dakota. Almost all of the oil drill rigs have been moved into storage yards. Compared to 2013, before the price of oil dropped, about 80% of the oil field jobs have been eliminated.

The effect of the oil field jobs being eliminated, is that every other sector of the economy has experienced a slow down, except for moving truck rental. Most of the oil field workers who lost their jobs have returned to the states where they came from. One of the main reasons the workers left so quickly was because housing was so expensive here, and it was so cold here, there was no point in staying.

I see no indication that the price of oil is going to quickly climb back to over $100 per barrel. Even if it did, the oil companies would hesitate to restart anything in North Dakota, they would have to wait and see if the price of oil was going to remain high. Then, if they did decide to restart, it would take a year to get all the people, service companies, trucking companies, and equipment up to speed again.

So, for at least the next year, there will be an economic decline in Western North Dakota. Like I said, even if the price of oil did go back up, the oil companies would have to wait and see that it remained high before they could make the decision to start large scale operations again. In Dickinson, Watford City, and Williston, about 40% of the rental housing is vacant. Williston is trying to force the closure of man camps, so that the remaining workers will have to rent apartments.

It would not be a good idea to move to Western North Dakota at this time. Though there are job openings in places like hospitals, overall the number of jobs will decrease. People will continue to lose their jobs and move back to the states where they came from. Though you may have been hired at a hospital, in about a year when the population has decreased even more, they may need less personnel at the hospital, that means you.

Beginning in 2015, though I had a job, I had to begin doing a second job at outside self employment. Then in 2016, I had to begin doing a third job in Watford City. If I didn’t have these three jobs, I would not be able to pay my bills. So what I am trying to tell you, is that it is not very busy in Dickinson, and now is not a good time to move to Dickinson.

Ranching And Farming In Western North Dakota

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When I first came to Dickinson, North Dakota, in 2011, I listened to a group of older local people talking.  They were saying, it was a very good thing that this oil boom came along when it did, there were a lot of farmers up around a certain area, (I am not repeating the specific area), that were incredibly poor, that were just struggling, not even getting by, and oh they were so poor, it was good that this oil boom came and saved them.

In this post, I am going to write about four farming and ranching families that I met since 2011, while living and working in Dickinson.

One of the first local people that I became friends with, was a man of about 60 years of age.  He grew up on his parents’ farm north of Dickinson.  His parents had died at least twenty years ago.  I visited his property many times.  He did not have running water or sewer at his home.  His farming equipment was worn out, and always needing repair.  He leased out most of the land to someone else to grow wheat.  There was an oil well on an adjacent property, and he received some oil revenue money from that.  The oil revenue money and the money he got from leasing the land, paid for the property tax and some of his bills.  He borrowed small amounts of money from me, a friend of mine, and another person, when he was broke, which he always paid back.  He worked different jobs.  He had had so little money, that all his teeth were bad, he was missing several front teeth, and he was never able to get his teeth fixed.  Oh, by the way, beginning in 2010 and continuing through 2014, he had been offered up to $2.5 million for his property by developers, which he would not accept.

A local man that I met in 2013, and became friends with, he had grown up on his grandparents’ farm north of Dickinson, he was in his 50s.  His family got their first indoor bathroom built onto their house when he was in the 4th grade.  A few times in the winter, in the entire house, there was no food to eat for the family of seven, they tell me about the time they found one jar of fruit in the basement, that was all they had to eat.  His mother had to pawn her wedding ring several times, eventually she didn’t get it back.  His mother and father both worked outside the home, besides running the farm.  When his parents got into their sixties, they sold the farm and moved to town.  They held the mineral rights to the land that was sold.  In about 2010 the family began receiving oil revenue checks, which the parents and the five adult children used to pay some of their bills.  My friend had never had enough money to get good dental care, all of his teeth are bad, and he is missing many teeth.  He is very ashamed of how he looks.  I got him a job a couple of times working with me.

In 2013, I was working for a contractor that did utility installations.  I had to go to a farm in the South Heart area.  The farmer that I met was in his fifties.  This farmer was alone, he had never married, and apparently he didn’t have any friends, and didn’t ever have anyone to talk to, probably for weeks at a time.  I talked to him for about an hour, even though I was supposed to be other places, because I realized that he didn’t have anyone to talk to.  I came to realize that the reason he had never married, and did not have any friends, was because he and his family had been so poor, nobody had wanted to have anything to do with him and his family.  He was very ashamed of his family house, they had never had running water and sewer installed to the house.  His mother and father were dead now.  He was alone.  Beginning in about 2010, he had a couple of oil wells on his property.  He now had two new trucks.  He had lived poor for so long, he really did not have any use for the oil well money after he bought the two new trucks.

A man that I know in his 30s, has a wife and several young children.  He lives on a ranch in the South Heart area.  Besides running the ranch, he had a full time job, and his wife also works.  He lost his job, and he became broke.  He recently got another job, and he is getting back on his feet.

I wanted to write about these four farming and ranching families to dispel some myths and misconceptions.  Farming and ranching in Western North Dakota is, and always has been very hard.  I am talking about mom pawns her wedding ring hard, one jar of fruit to eat in the entire house hard, having all your teeth go bad and rotting out of your mouth because you can’t afford dental care hard, so poor you can’t get a wife hard, so poor you don’t have indoor plumbing hard.

Note To Jessie Veeder, And Everybody, What Living In Western North Dakota Is Like

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I am still angry after reading Jessie Veeder’s website, “Meanwhile, back at the ranch…”.  Jessie Veeder is from Watford City, she writes weekly newspaper articles about living in Western North Dakota.  She is sometimes a guest on Prairie Public Radio.

I am angry with the comments women have posted to Jessie’s website.  Women from all over the United States have posted comments about how nice it must be living in North Dakota, from what Jessie writes about it.

Jessie writes about living on a ranch, and she takes photographs of horses, flowers, fields, and dogs.  Women read what she writes, look at her photographs, and comment that living in Western North Dakota must be so nice.  Attention Women!, if you are getting the impression that it might be nice to live on a ranch, not have to pay rent, not have to worry about being evicted, not have to go to a job every day, this is not how the fuck it is in Western North Dakota!

Imagine that you are man, you have a wife, a one year old and a four year old.  You have a lease for a two bedroom apartment that costs $2,000 per month.  Your wife does not work because she has to stay home with the kids.  Fisher Industries right now has a job advertisement for welders, paying $18 per hour, yes $18 per hour.  I don’t know if they are working any overtime right now, let’s say they work five, ten hour days.  That’s $990 per week before taxes, about $800 per week after taxes, about $3,200 per month after taxes.

Rent $2,000, utilities $150, cable TV $75, cell phones $50, car insurance $100, car payment $200 (piece of shit car), leaves $625 left over for a family of four, for food and gas each month, if nothing goes wrong.  That’s $21 a day total, for a family of four, for food and gas!  No money for clothes, birthday presents, Christmas presents, vacation, or savings!

Before you try to get smart and say, “You can get a two bedroom apartment now for $1,500 per month.”, people aren’t getting overtime now either, so $18 per hour, 40 hours per week, is $720 per week before taxes, $580 per week after taxes, about $2,320 per month after taxes.  After your $1,500 rent, utilities $150, cable TV $75, cell phones $50, car insurance $100, car payment $200, leaves $245 for food and gas, for the family of four, for the entire month!

On the internet, when you do a Google search for “living in Watford City” or “living in Dickinson”, you get search results back for websites titled, “Watford City, Living The Good Life”, and “Dickinson, Living The Good Life”.  The vast majority of the people in Watford City and Dickinson are struggling financially, and are worried about losing their jobs.

As far as the ranching life goes in Western North Dakota, most of the ranchers that I have known, and currently know, they are struggling financially.  One of these ranchers borrowed money from me several times, and a friend of mine several times, when he was broke.  He had asked to come to work with me.  Other ranchers that I personally know, they have had to rely on their jobs to support their families, and have become broke when they lost their jobs.

I wish that Jessie Veeder would go and talk to the wives that live in the new apartments in Watford City and Dickinson, and talk to them about what their lives are like.  Anyway, I told you, and I am going to keep telling everybody what living in Dickinson and living in Watford City is really like.

 

How Businesses Treat People In Dickinson, North Dakota

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Problem Women Moving To Dickinson, North Dakota

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Sons Of Dickinson, North Dakota

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Death Of Eric Haider, Dickinson, North Dakota

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

A brief history:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

Economy in Dickinson, March 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

German Catholics In North Dakota Part II

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When I lived in Arizona, I worked in health care.  Wherever I went, to a critical care unit in a public hospital, to a private skilled nursing facility, to a Hospice House, to an assisted living facility, I always ran into the Catholic Nuns, Sister Elizabeth and Sister Augustine.  Both of them were Irish, both of them were in their 70s.

Sister Elizabeth and Sister Augustine were tireless in visiting the poor, the sick, and the elderly.  I had a great deal of admiration for them, once I realized that they weren’t going to try to hit me.  They were a source of inspiration in elderly patients, both because of their boundless energy, and because they were there to give Holy Communion.  Once, one of the Nuns left behind the bag of communion wafers, and I was going to eat them all, and the Catholic patient was gasping at me, ” Oh God no!”

These two Irish Nuns cheered me up too.  I still remember the joke they told me about the two parrots that had been taught to say, “We’ re two hookers, and we’re here to have a good time!”  The punch line was, they went to live with two male parrots who said, “See, I told you there was a God!”

When Sister Augustine slipped on some wet tile, and broke her hip, she was only in bed for about one month, before she was walking and back on duty.  Most women in their 70s would have been wheel chair bound for many months, if not forever.  Sister Augustine was determined to get back on her feet, to help people.  She and Sister Elizabeth helped many, many people.

Why can’t the Catholics in Dickinson be like this, reaching out to people, trying to help people?  In Dickinson, I have seen the Catholics turn their back on people in need, and try to withdraw from helping people.

There was a young Catholic priest in Dickinson, who began talking to me when I was on the internet in a public place, looking at profiles of women on the internet dating site Plenty Of Fish.  I believe that he thought that I was looking at pornography, because I was looking at pictures of women, but it was just a dating site.  He talked to me about the Assumption Abbey in Richardton, which was a Catholic Monastery built in the early 1900s.  He was inviting me to visit the monastery grounds which occupied about 100 acres, they made soap and other products, and meet the monks.

A couple of years later, I spoke to the Abbot of the Assumption Abbey, and he was anti-everybody, the last thing they wanted was to have to deal with people for any reason.  I thought, “Huh, that’s odd, the Catholics used to send monks off to far away places like  Africa, South America, the Pacific Islands, to reach out to, and engage the savages, yet here in North Dakota, the Catholics don’t even want people on their property!”  So much for Christian outreach. The Catholics in Dickinson have the attitude, “Go fuck yourself!”  (Actually, if you read a recent comment to one of my blog posts, it says, “Go fuck yourself!”)

In Dickinson, they have a charity benefit and auction at Trinity High School, the Catholic School.  It is a spaghetti dinner, and you can buy raffle tickets for a Camero.  I wanted to go to eat and buy a raffle ticket.  In the parking lot, the local people were glaring daggers at me.  Inside Trinity High School, the people were very hostile and unfriendly to me.  I decided to not eat, and just buy a raffle ticket.  It was $10 a ticket.  I handed the young priest a $20, he gave me a ticket, and not any change.  I had to be stern with him about handing him a $20, and him not giving me change, to get my $10 change.

After the date of the raffle, I looked and looked and looked to try to find out if I had won the Camero, or who had won the Camero.  I never could find out who won the car, which made me believe that these Catholics here in Dickinson are crooked, nasty people.

I had to do a construction project down the street from a Catholic School in Dickinson.  The wind picked up one Saturday morning, and balls started rolling off the roof of the school, and rolling down to my truck, I collected about four of them.  I thought to myself, those poor kids probably all got beat for these balls going missing.  I put them back inside the fence.  When some Catholic woman arrived later that morning, she got out of her car and just glared at me menacingly.  I thought, “What is wrong with these Catholics in Dickinson, they are the exact opposite of what Christians are supposed to be, what are they teaching in Church here, why are they like this?”  This was not nearly the last time I found Catholic women in Dickinson to be glaring and scowling at me with hatred for reasons unknown to me, other than me merely existing.

The Catholics in Dickinson outwardly show hostility and hatred towards others for merely existing.  This leads me to believe that the Catholic Church in Dickinson is actively teaching their members to treat others with scorn, hatred, and hostility.  Besides the glaring, scowling, and nasty treatment by the Catholics in Dickinson, they have a revulsion to helping anyone.  Why does the Catholic Church hold services in Dickinson?  It has nothing to do with Christianity.  Why does the Catholic Church in Dickinson collect tithes, offerings, donations, and bequests?  I think that the Catholic Church in Dickinson, its leadership and its followers, is not a Christian organization, but a hate group.

A tree will be known by its fruit.  Does a bad tree produce good fruit?  You only have to read your Bible to know that the Catholic Church in Dickinson, and the Catholics in Dickinson are not Christians.

German Catholics In North Dakota, Part I

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I went to Catholic School, first through fourth grade, Sacred Heart School.  My first grade teacher was Sister Louise.  Sister Louise used to beat us severely.  Mostly she would use her bare hands to slap our faces, but she also beat our palms with a paddle-ball paddle, and she also had a long wooden rod for other types of beatings.

I believe that most of the kids’ parents did not believe how bad she beat us.  Justin, Jonathan, and George all talked to me about it later in High School, “Can you believe that shit, that shit was fucked up.”  All I could say was, “Yea, I know.”

There were other stories of physical harm done to kids at Sacred Heart.  I do remember some students who did not return to Sacred Heart after the first day or the first week of school, these were the kids whose parents believed them.

Now days, the police would have been to that school, the first day, and taken teachers away in handcuffs for assault and child abuse.  We, all of us, could easily win a class action lawsuit today against the Catholic Church for the physical abuse that was done to us.  I could write pages and pages of instances of physical abuse at Sacred Heart School, both of me, and of my classmates.

Putting the above aside for a moment, I want to talk about something else in the Catholic Church that I became aware of as a young teenager.  A friend of my father had been a comptroller for a very large Catholic organization for many years, so many years, that he was trusted.  Many Catholic priests had come to this comptroller with the same “problem”.  These priests had accumulated over a million dollars in personal assets, and they did not want anyone to know or for anyone to find out.  One of the ways in which this was happening, was through relatives and parish members bequeathing things to them in their Wills.

My mother was disgusted, that throughout our state, our country, the World, the Catholic Church solicits offerings, alms, donations, from the poorest of the poor, the people that are barely surviving, and yet the Catholic Church is one of the wealthiest institutions on Earth.  The Catholic priests are millionaires, yet there are many poor people in their parish, who have a hard time paying for food, rent, and utilities.

I started off this blog post the way I did, so that I could state that I know there are some things wrong with the Catholic Church, and Catholic culture and values.  Here in Dickinson, North Dakota, the Catholic Church is, and has been the primary cultural and societal influence.  When there was no oil field, when the German and Ukrainian settlers first came to this area, the Catholic Church was very, very important, and it always has been.

The reason why I am writing about all of this now, is that I want to say that going to Mass, going to Confession, saying Hail Marys and Our Fathers, is not really getting it done as far as instilling human decency in these Catholic people here in Dickinson.  I want to point out again, that the people here in Dickinson really treated out of state workers very badly during this last oil boom.  The people who mistreated the out of state workers the most, were the real estate agents, the property managers, and the property investors here in Dickinson.  Not only did the real estate agents, property managers, and property investors make the rent and housing prices quadruple, they helped to make sure that there was a scarcity of housing and no inexpensive housing alternatives, by making sure there were no new trailer parks or man-camps constructed outside of Dickinson.

If you read the Bible, what you are supposed to do if you are a Christian, you will read sayings and teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.  Jesus once said, so as you do to the least of my people, so do you to me.  Therefore, if you are a Christian, you should watch what you do, to everybody!  Jesus didn’t say, so as you do to the people who are from this area ….

There is a big flaw in Catholicism, if you go to Mass every Sunday, and you do not know some simple teachings from the Bible.  “What profiteth a man that he gain the whole World, yet lose his soul?  Or, what shall he give in exchange for his soul?”

You can go and look at the Real Estate Multiple Listing Guide in Dickinson, and you can look at the smiling photographs of the realtors in Dickinson, good good Catholics all!  People who have connections, and can really get things done!  Yet there is no homeless shelter in Dickinson.  Did I mention, that the Catholic Church is one of the wealthiest institutions in the World?

There are probably some Catholics reading this right now, and they are probably screaming,  “We don’t have to help people!  We don’t have to help anybody!”  If you don’t like this post, you are sure to not like the next post, “German Catholics In North Dakota Part II”.

Paranormal Oil Fields

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In Dickinson, North Dakota, there is a dinosaur museum.  There is also a Tyrannosaurus Rex on display at the T-Rex Shopping Mall in Dickinson.  In Vernal, Utah, where there is an oil field, there is also a dinosaur museum.

It is believed that thousands of years ago, dinosaurs roamed rain forests with lush vegetation, the dinosaurs died, and over time the rain forests became covered by layers of earth.  With time and pressure, the decaying dinosaurs and plants, turned into oil.  Does this mean that wherever dinosaurs are uncovered, oil lies below?  Yes, I think that it does.

In western North Dakota, there is a very well known legend, that the United States Calvary was pursuing a tribe of Native Americans, and that they had them trapped at Killdeer Mountain.  The next morning, the tribe of Native Americans was nowhere to be found.  About several months later, this same tribe of Native Americans was located in South Dakota.  The Native Americans in this area claimed that there is a cave on Killdeer Mountain, called “Medicine Hole Cave”, that allowed them to travel underground to South Dakota, although some claim that they traveled underground to Grassy Butte, which is only about fifty miles away.  The Medicine Hole Cave on Killdeer Mountain is marked to this day, but the entrance is blocked with debris.  Explorers report that this cave is only 300 feet long.

In Vernal, Utah, the Native American legends are much more numerous, that is where “Skin Walker Ranch” is located.  In about 1996, I was listening to a late night radio program “Coast to Coast AM”, where a journalist was describing the strange things that were happening to a family in Vernal, Utah who had bought a cattle ranch.  The family members frequently viewed strange, unknown animals on their property.  Some of the animals resembled large wolves that behaved very suspiciously.  Some of the animals resembled prehistoric creatures.  Glowing orbs of light floated above their property at night.  The ranch was purchased by the National Institute for Discovery Science, and its location was kept a secret, it was off limits to visitors.

Over the years, from time to time, I would try to do some research on the location of Skin Walker Ranch.  I had some information that it was in Utah.  In 2012, I went to Vernal, Utah, to try to get a job in the oil field there.  I don’t know exactly how, I can’t explain exactly how, I started to think that Skin Walker Ranch was in this area.  I think that the word “Uintah”, the Native American Tribe in the area, was something that I had read in connection with the Skin Walker Ranch.  I looked on the internet a few more times, and there was a photograph of the barricades placed in front of the main entrance gate at Skin Walker Ranch.

I had an old beat up Jeep, that I had towed behind my truck with me to Vernal.  I set off for the Uintah Native American Indian reservation.  I did a lot of driving, pulling over, looking around, turning around, going around and around, but eventually I found it.  There was no mistake about it.  I had read that you could see most of the property, if you parked 1/2 mile away on a hill overlooking the Skin Walker Ranch.  That is what I did, and I watched the Skin Walker Ranch for about four hours with binoculars, until I had had enough.  I did see security vehicles patrolling the property.  I was kind of alarmed when I had been observing the property for several hours with binoculars, and I hadn’t spotted the truck parked in the trees, watching me the whole time.

As I was leaving the Uintah reservation, I stopped at a gas station.  The was a tribal police officer there, and I asked him about the Skin Walker Ranch.  I told him that I had been reading about it for years, had he ever seen anything strange at the Skin Walker Ranch? The tribal police officer explained to me, that all of the Native Americans on the reservation have seen floating orbs, strange animals, even large space craft recently that caused the power to go out, these things have been occurring for many years.  He said that the Native Americans have no desire to report any of these things to outsiders, they have no interest trying to explain what they saw to people.

I did get a job with an employer in Vernal, Utah, but I had to go to Carrizo Springs, Texas to work for him.  After several months, I asked my employer about the Skin Walker Ranch.  My employer, who was very no-nonsense, said that a friend of his lived not far from the Skin Walker Ranch, his friend had a large, lanky, wolf-like creature, come and lay on its back on top of a shed in his back yard.  When he went towards it, it got up and ran away upright on two legs.  My employer told me more instances of creatures seen twice by his brother.  I later met a woman who grew up in Vernal, who told me stories about UFOs in Vernal, told to her by her grandmother.

If you go back further in my blog, I wrote a post titled “UFOs in Dickinson”.  I wrote about UFO sightings and landings in the New England area south Dickinson in the 1970s.  There were so many farmers discussing what had happened, that the Air Force sent personnel to New England to convince them to stop talking about it.

 

Temptation In Dickinson, North Dakota

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Last summer, I got a telephone call from a homeowner lady, requesting an estimate for work on her house.  From the address she gave me on the telephone, I knew the neighborhood, it was a nice residential neighborhood.

The following day, when I was driving to the specified address, as I got closer and closer, I was saying to myself,”Please don’t let it be that house, please don’t let it be that house.  Fuck, it’s that house.”  I had been to this house before when I was working for another contractor.  I had had to take the fence down, in order to get equipment to the back of the house.  Trees, bushes, a shed, and the fence had all been in the way.

I didn’t remember meeting the homeowners, but I remembered the back yard very well, and I didn’t want to work at this house.  When a yard is taken care of meticulously, as a contractor, you know that you are going to have to be so careful not to damage anything, and that the homeowners will not be forgiving about damage to anything.

I met the homeowner woman, and she was very beautiful.  She was about one inch shorter than me, she was my age, she had beautiful long dark hair, brown eyes, was very thin, and was in very good physical shape.  She kind of looked like Kate Middleton, the Duchess of York, but she was prettier and in better shape than Kate Middleton.

About the only time I can keep my wits when I am around a beautiful woman, is when I am completing a work estimate.  I am more focused on assessing how difficult the job is, how many hours it will take, what equipment I will need, how much I will have to pay my helper.  I do notice attractive women homeowners when I am trying to figure out my estimate, but I just don’t pay that much attention.

By the time I was done writing my estimate, the homeowner lady and I were in the dining room.  Her house was just as clean inside, as her yard was meticulously taken care of outside.  I was standing about ten feet from her, when her husband came in the front door.  The homeowner lady began immediately explaining to her husband what I was doing there.  I could tell that she felt some urgency in explaining this to her husband right away.  I could tell that her husband was surprised, and concerned.  Her husband was polite and cordial to me, which was what you would expect from a professional person who was the manager of a business.

Her husband was a nice looking man.  He was a little bit taller than me, a little bit skinnier than me, and he was not as weather-worn as me.  I felt that the two of them looked like they belonged together, they made a good couple.  As I talked to both of them for a while, I found out what they did, and that they had three children that were just getting out of high school.

I started working at this house.  I talked to the homeowner lady some more.  I found out more about her.  I liked her more.  I liked everything about her.  I wanted her.  It is one thing when I am attracted to a young lady because of her physical appearance, but I just don’t know what they are like, or what they will become.  A woman like this, you can see what they are like, and you can see what they are, and you can like everything about them more strongly.  In their home, you have a chance to talk to them privately, without interruptions, and sometimes they express feelings that they do not share with others, for various reasons.

Working as a contractor, I had been in this situation once or twice before.  I meet a beautiful housewife, and I like her a lot.  We talk while I am working, and we begin to like each other more.  I have had to decide what to do before.  I think of the problems that I would cause, for the wife, the husband, and the children.  If I really like this woman, why would I ruin her life?  I wouldn’t.

I could not take the place of her husband.  They have been together for at least twenty years.  They have three kids together, that are just getting ready to begin college.  They are going to have a hard time paying for three kids in college at the same time.  They both need to be working together in order to support their kids.  I couldn’t afford to put these kids through college.  I couldn’t afford this house.  I can’t take the place of her husband.  I’m not going to ruin her life.

This is one time, that I want to be careful what I write in this blog.  I don’t want to be a jerk about this subject.  The truth is, that at some point in their lives, women are ready for somebody to come along and “ruin everything”, because they just can’t stand it anymore.  They have the right husband, the right house, in the right neighborhood, and kids that are getting ready to graduate and go off to college.  Everything is so right, they are just sick of it, and they want something else.  Maybe they feel like it is killing them, they are getting old, they are always doing everything right.  They wish someone would just wreck it so bad for them, that they wouldn’t have to keep going like this.

As I was leaving the house that day, the teen aged son was just coming home from school.  As he got out of his friend’s car, he was glaring at me with a querrying look.  I said, “Hey”, as I went to my truck.  I made sure that I did not have any kind of grin or smugness, no sign of happiness.  I knew what he was thinking.  No, I didn’t have sex with your mother.

 

Crystal City, Texas, Similar, But Worse, Than Dickinson, North Dakota

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Tonight, I just finished reading a nation-wide newspaper article about Crystal City, Texas.  The city attorney, mayor, assistant mayor, and the entire city council, except for one councilman, were all arrested by the FBI for bribery and corruption.

In 2011, I had had such a bad experience working in Dickinson, that I went back home, and vowed never to come back.  The people in Dickinson were unfriendly and inhospitable, there was a shortage of women and very few attractive women, there was no place to live and rents were ridiculously high, it was very cold.  I never wanted to come back.

I went to the oil field in Vernal, Utah looking for work.  I was asked if I would go to an oil field in southwest Texas, owned by Anadarko.  I agreed to go.  I drove about 2,000 miles to get there.  A new manufactured home was rented for me to live in just outside of Crystal City, Texas.

On my first day of work, I was leaving Crystal City headed south on the highway, driving to the Anadarko offices in Carrizo Springs.  I was going about 60 mph, a vehicle going about 85 mph almost ran into me head-on, because a Texas police officer was chasing him, forcing him to pass the north bound cars in front of him, and run head-on into me.  The Texas cop was fucking crazy and stupid, he was forcing this guy into the oncoming traffic in the south bound lane.

When I got done with work that day, I drove back to Crystal City and stopped at a gas station.  A police officer was pulling over someone in a Ford Ranger truck while I was pumping gas.  The police officer talked to the driver for a while, asked the driver to get out of the truck, and then began searching the truck, removing items from the truck.  Finding nothing, the driver was given a speeding ticket, and let go.

The next day at work, I heard other out-of-state contractors talking about getting pulled over in Crystal City, and having their truck searched.  The contractors were saying that was the last time they would ever give consent for a search, it took them about an hour to get all of their tools and equipment back into all of the correct compartments on their truck.  The police in Texas are mean, they are just shy of being psychopaths, they are just as bad or worse than criminals.

Every business, grocery store, gas station, and restaurant in Crystal City and Carrizo Springs was dirty and grungy.  The population in Crystal City and Carrizo Springs was about 85% Hispanic.  There were some big cultural differences.  At all but one of the restaurants in Crystal City and Carrizo Springs, the waitresses were very slow to take my order because I was white, they were very lazy and shitty about taking my order.  For everybody, at every restaurant but one, it would take about one hour to get your food.  The cooks were very lazy and had a very bad attitude.

The oil field south of Carrizo Springs was right on the border with Mexico.  Mexicans walked across the border through the oil fields every day.  The oil field workers told me to not ever leave keys in your truck, not ever leave your truck running, a Mexican will run out of the bushes and take your truck, and you will have a long, long walk to get back to the highway.  Though it was prohibited by Anadarko and Chesapeake Energy, most of the oil field workers carried guns with them every day.

In the summer, working out in the dry scrub brush, the temperature was 120 degrees Fahrenheit.  Some of the ranches around the oil field were 1,000 acres, about half of them had their own airplane runways.  Because of the heat, the barrenness, the remoteness, and the comparitive wealth of the white ranchers, who were in the extreme minority, the white ranchers were just out of their minds.

In businesses around Crystal City and Carrizo Springs, there were official signs that said it was a crime to hold illegal immigrants against their will and force them to work.  Apparently, the wealthy white ranchers used to “catch” illegal immigrants crossing their property, and then not let them leave, and force them to work.  It was discovered that one rancher had dug a hole that was about twenty-five feet in diameter and ten feet deep, when he saw a Mexican crossing his ranch, he would just shoot them and throw them in the hole.  He had about twenty dead Mexicans in his hole when it was discovered.

The Texans at Anadarko were crazy.  The wealthy white ranchers were crazy.  The 85% Hispanic population did not like whites, and their culture was very different.  For me, it was like Vietnam in the movie “Apocalypse Now”.  The local people did not want the whites there.  The police were psychopath crazy, and were going after the out-of-state workers every day.  Out in the oil field, I had to look up and look around about every 60 seconds to make sure no Mexicans were sneaking up on me to try to take my vehicle.  It’s 120 degrees, and the Anadarko people are acting like this is just great and let’s have a barbeque.

It doesn’t surprise me that the FBI arrested the city attorney, the mayor, the assistant mayor, and the entire city council, except for one councilman.  This area was so remote, and isolated, that they had their own way of doing things, which was what ever they wanted.  Dickinson is not that bad, but there are a lot of similarities.

 

 

 

Children Do Not Play In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I have lived in Dickinson for nearly 3-1/2 years now, and I have never seen children playing in the street.  When I was a kid, I spent about 25% of my time playing in the street.  I would try to do tricks on my bicycle, I could ride my bike backwards very well.  I could only ever do wheelies for about ten feet.  I could hardly ever do front wheel stands.  We would build bigger and better ramps in the street, and measure how far everybody jumped.  If there was somebody dumb enough to do it, we would stand garbage cans upright for someone to jump over, which meant they were going to land on them.

If there happened to be a grocery store shopping cart in the neighborhood, we would take a hacksaw and cut the basket off the top of it, and make a chariot out of the lower part.  We would get a rope, tie one end to the seat of a bicycle, the other end to the front bar of the grocery cart chariot.  The bicycle would ride down the middle of the street, the chariot rider would swing out to the curb.

About 25% of the time we would spend on “forts”.  Some of the time was spent inhabiting and maintaining existing “forts”, part of the time was spent prospecting and building new forts.  This seemed only natural to do.  I had a good tree fort in my yard, which I sometimes spent the night in.  I ran an extension cord out to my tree fort and had a TV in it.  However, there was a need for additional “forts” elsewhere.  We constructed a pretty good tree fort about half a block away in somebody else’s yard, without them knowing about it, which is the best way to do it.  We salvaged lumber from people’s trash piles, or obtained lumber from other people’s yards.  We had another tree fort about one block away over a storm drainage canal, it was very picturesque.

I never see kids in Dickinson playing in the street, I never see them building tree forts.  I have not seen one tree fort in Dickinson.  I have written several blog posts about how the culture in Dickinson is different than from where I am from.  For instance, I have mentioned in past blog posts that there is just about nothing an out-of-state person can say that they have, without someone in Dickinson not liking it and having resentment.  If you said that you had an aquarium, a trampoline, a pool table, or a swimming pool, people in Dickinson would not like it, they would think or say,”We don’t need any of that shit around here!”  I explained in previous blog posts, that after visiting the museum in Medora, and having talked to long-time residents in Dickinson, conditions in North Dakota had been very difficult and poor up until the late 1970s when there was an oil boom.

I have only ever met two people from western North Dakota that know how to play.  One of them was Miss North Dakota, who I wrote about meeting in a previous blog post.  Miss North Dakota’s family members have all commented, that while they were all trying to get work done, she was always playing.  When she was in school, instead of participating in sports, she was off playing.  She plays with cats and other animals.  She just wants to play, she is still playing, and she doesn’t want to get married until she is in her forties she says.  The other person that I know, is the same age as Miss North Dakota, and she plays with her cats and dogs too.  I am not talking about go fetch this ball, I am talking about,”Here is your house, and here is your hat, and here is your jacket, put this on.”

The other unusual thing about Miss North Dakota and the other young lady, is that they don’t have a kid yet.  Many other young women in western North Dakota get pregnant right away.  For them, it’s not like, let’s play doctor, or let’s play house, it’s “I’m pregnant.  No, I’m serious, I’m pregnant.”

What I have noticed in Dickinson, is that there is not a wide range of thought, it is kind of narrow.  I have written several blog posts titled “Advice to Women in Dickinson”, where I wrote that young women should not think of moving in with a guy right out of high school and getting pregnant, as the only thing there is to do.

At this point, this post is probably upsetting and hurtful to people from Dickinson.  I am not trying to be mean in this post, other posts I might be, but not in this one.  I want to point out, that people from out-of-state like myself, come to Dickinson, and experience some culture shock.  In the South, where it is warm, people play.  People surf, sail, swim, canoe, jet ski, water ski, ride horses, play tennis, play golf, roller blade, skateboard, mountain bike, play volleyball, have paint ball battles.  Here in Dickinson, kids don’t even play.

Reasons Why I Dislike Property Investors, Property Managers, and Real Estate Agents

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In many of my blog posts I have expressed anger towards property investors, property managers, and real estate agents in Dickinson.  I want to explain this.

People need to have food, clothing, and shelter.  These are necessities that people must have.  I believe very strongly that it is wrong for individuals to try to buy up necessities intended for other people, so that they can then overcharge for these necessities.  In other words, I think that it is absolutely wrong for anyone to come up with any type of scheme to buy up, control, inflate the price, and over charge for basic necessities that would normally be inexpensive if it weren’t for greedy people trying to manipulate supply, availability, and prices.

Just because a person can conceive to do something, and then go do it, does not mean that it is right.

During the 1700s and 1800s, people went over to Africa and caught blacks, sold them as slaves, and then forced them to work for free.  In the United States we already argued, fought, and had a Civil War over this.  Now, 99% of people believe that you can’t catch other people and own them.  But, if there wasn’t a law against it, people would still be trying to catch and own slaves in the United States, because some people are so greedy, they disregard right and wrong, moral and immoral, just and unjust, like the Property Investors, Property Managers, and Real Estate Agents here in Dickinson.

In the 1800s and early 1900s, children as young as 8,9,10 years old, worked in factories, twelve hours a day, seven days a week, in dangerous and unsafe conditions.  To many business owners, there was nothing wrong with this, that is why they did it in the first place.  Even to this day, business owners like to say, “Supply and demand, free markets, let the market place decide, capitalism.”  Letting business people do what they want, resulted in slavery, child labor in factories, 12 hour work days every day of the week, unsafe and dangerous work conditions.  If it weren’t for the Emancipation Proclamation, Child Labor Laws, Federal Wage Laws, and OHSA, all of the things that I just mentioned would be still going on today.

The scheme has also occurred to greedy business people, that they could buy up necessities, so that these necessities would not be available to other people, and then they could overcharge for them.  What would happen if wealthy business people bought all of the food, all of it?  What if the wealthy business people then decided that you should pay $2.50 for a can of beans, carrots, or peas?  This may happen one day, because there is no law against it.  But just because someone can do it, does that make it right?

In the beginning of the United States, single family homes were built for single families to live in.  Probably early on, some single family homes were occupied by renters.  Renters are easily subject to being taken advantage of.  In some areas of the United States, single family homes were occupied by share-croppers, which was even more perilous than being a renter.  Being at the mercy of someone else for your housing, existed from the beginning of the United States.  However, after World War II, people were nearly free from other people controlling their housing, and we could have stayed on that course, had it not been for greedy people getting involved.

After World War II, due to advances in manufacturing, technology, engineering, agriculture, and energy transmission, the standard of living in the United States was the highest it had ever been.  A husband could work outside the home for eight hours a day, forty hours per week, and he could afford to purchase a home for his family to live in, buy furniture, buy an automobile, and pay for all of his family’s necessities.  The same kind of business minds that brought us slavery and 10 year old children working in factories, went to work on how to take advantage of people.

Business people began to think, why not buy single family homes as an investment?  Everybody needs a place to live, why not buy single family homes, and charge more for rent than the mortgage payment?  As long as you can rent out a single family home for more than the mortgage, property tax, and insurance, it pays for itself, and in fifteen or twenty years, it will be completely paid for.  If this is the  case, why not buy ten single family homes, rent them out, and in twenty years, you will have ten homes that are completely paid off?  One reason not to do it, would be that you are driving up the single family home prices, and preventing ten families from owning their own home.

There is a saying, banks loan money to people who can prove that they do not need a loan.  There are people that have high incomes, that are able to pay for all of their necessities and still have a great deal of money left over each month.  They can prove to the bank that their own home is paid for, they have a large amount of money in savings, and that they have several thousand dollars of extra money each month after their necessities are paid for.  The bank is happy to give them a mortgage on several single family homes, they can easily afford the monthly payments, plus, they are just going to rent them out anyway, for more than the monthly mortgage.

A young husband and wife, with no savings, and not very good employment, is not able to make a down payment on a home or be approved for a mortgage.  This same husband and wife, as they become older, if they have had a period of unemployment or medical problems, they may still be unable to make a down payment on a home or be approved for a mortgage.  This same husband and wife in old age, have spent all of their earnings raising children and helping other family members, they may still be unable to make a down payment on a home or be approved for a mortgage.

I read a real estate investment book that was published in the 1980s.  In this book, there were charts of single family home prices in cities like Orlando, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Omaha in the late 1970s.  The charts showed that in these cities, the average single family home price was approximately twice the average annual salary of an individual in that city.  The charts also showed that the monthly rents on the average single family home were slightly higher than the monthly mortgage amounts. So if you were a real estate investor, it made sense to buy as many single family homes in those cities as you could find.  This real estate investment book also pointed out, that as time passed, you would have more and more equity in your single family rental homes, and could use this equity to borrow against in order buy more single family homes.  Also, as time went by, prices on everything go up, if your mortgage payment on your single family rental home stays the same, and you increase your rent every year, your “positive cash flow” on each home increases every year.

When I was reading this real estate investment book that was published in the 1980s, it was 2005.  At that time, the average single family home price in places like Orlando and Phoenix was now three to four times the average annual salary of an individual in that city.  Why did the price of single family homes go from twice the annual salary of an individual to three to four times the annual salary of an individual?  I will tell you why, because all of the real estate agents and property investors that were fucking around in the single family home market trying to get rich, that made the price of single family homes double.

An ordinary single family home, is just a place for a working husband and wife to have kids and raise a family, in an ordinary neighborhood, where other working people are doing the same thing.  There shouldn’t be any reason for local attorneys, doctors, and dentists, to be trying to get their hands on as many ordinary single family homes as they can.  There shouldn’t be people in New York City and Los Angeles trying to buy as many single family homes as they can in Omaha, but that is what is happening.  The real estate agents take it upon themselves, to bump the listing prices on $100,000 homes in Omaha, up to $115,000, because the real estate investors in New York City and Los Angeles will still buy them, they don’t know, they don’t care that much either.  The working husband and wife who finally saved up enough to afford the down payment on a $100,000 home, ask,”What the fuck just happened?”, when the price goes up to $115,000 the next week.

Real estate agents like to help inflate the price of housing, because their commissions are based on the price of housing sold.  Real estate agents also like to help inflate the price of housing, so that they can tell potential buyers that they had better buy now, prices are climbing, if you buy now, your house will be worth 10% more in two years.  The prices of single family homes went up and up because there were so many real estate investors trying to buy multiple single family homes.  The real estate investors did not really care that the single family home prices were quickly rising, they thought that this was good, they would have equity in their homes more quickly, they went ahead and paid the high prices.  Ordinary working people that were desperate to own a home, went ahead and entered into huge mortgages that they could barely afford to pay, ridiculously high mortgages based on their modest incomes.

The housing crash came.  Many ordinary working people could not afford their ridiculously high mortgages on their single family home.  Due to slumping employment, many ordinary working people could not afford high rent.  Real estate investors that owned multiple single family homes, had some tenants move out, some tenants get behind on rent, some tenants negotiate lower rents.  Real estate investors came to be unable to afford the mortgage payments on multiple rental houses when tenants moved out or failed to pay rent.

Real estate investors never should have been involved in single family homes that were intended for ordinary working people to live in and raise families.  Real estate agents were willing accomplices in making single family homes unaffordable to ordinary working people.

If rich business people could do it, they would buy up all the food, all of it, and not let you have it unless you paid two or three times what it cost them.  They don’t care how much suffering they cause.

The real estate investors, property managers, and real estate agents in Dickinson did not care how much hardship they caused people in Dickinson during this past oil boom.  Rents on homes and apartments were increased to four or five times what they had been before the oil boom.  Wealthy people, people who owned property, real estate agents, property investors, property managers, they all lobbied and made sure that no man-camp or trailer park was built in Stark County, in order to ensure that there continued to be a shortage of housing, and no inexpensive housing alternatives.  I knew many people who slept in their vehicles, in the cold, in 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2015 because they could not afford to rent an apartment in Dickinson.  This is also why there is not a homeless shelter in Dickinson, the people with money in Dickinson didn’t want people to have any place to stay if they couldn’t afford to pay the extremely high rents.