Tag Archives: Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota

Housing, Employment, Cost of Living

Animals And Hunting In Dickinson, North Dakota

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Recently I began working on a project in a very remote and rural area about one hour from Dickinson.  The project that I am working on, occupies about 30 acres of land.

The project that I am working on, is not completely fenced in.  There are other types of operations occurring on adjacent land, that are loosely related to this project, which makes a continuous fence impractical.  There are “No Hunting” signs posted on fence posts, and at the entrances to the site, but there are not enough of these signs.

The project owners, and we workers, don’t want hunting on the project property because we don’t want the equipment to get shot, and we don’t want to get shot.  But this is an ongoing problem.

All kinds of animals have learned and figured out, that hunting is not supposed to take place on this 30 acre work site.  In my 48 years of living in Florida, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Texas, Idaho, and North Dakota, I had seen a fox approximately two to three times.  However in the past three days, I have seen a red fox on this work site a couple of times each day, and I see him for a minute at a time.

Also during the past three days, about twelve deer have come to the work site to hide amongst the equipment so that they won’t be shot.  There are other animals trying to hide on the work site, which I haven’t been able to identify yet because I get such a brief glimpse of them.

I drive the work vehicle slowly in order to not frighten the foxes and the deer.  They somewhat recognize the work vehicle and me, they watch to see what I am doing, and they only move away a little bit.  They don’t want to leave the work site.

The reason why the animals are here, is because pheasant hunting season began on October 7.  All of the pheasant hunters walking through the fields and shooting, has caused the animals to flee.

Though there are hundreds and hundreds of miles of grassland in every direction in western North Dakota, hunters keep showing up on the roads adjacent to this work site.  The hunters begin by making an effort to hunt on the adjacent land, but in the both the distant and the recent past, the hunters “accidentally” end up on the work site property, which is posted “No Hunting”.

Essential Information On Working And Living In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I was an outsider to Dickinson, North Dakota.  I have now lived and worked in Dickinson for 5-1/2 years.  For the past three years, I have been writing about Dickinson on this blog website.  After writing, thinking, discussing, and searching hard for answers, about why Dickinson is the way that it is, I finally think that I have the answers.

I have seen and experienced that the local people from Dickinson have hatred, hostility, bitterness, resentment, maliciousness, and malevolence for the non-local people who have come to Dickinson to work.  Non-local people will experience this most profoundly at work in Dickinson.

I believe that one of the causes for the hatred of non-local people, was the Catholic Church here in Dickinson.  The Catholic Church here in Dickinson, was probably the biggest social and cultural influence for many years.  This Church did not teach kindness and helpfulness to others, but instead it taught foremost to protect one’s own family, Catholics, and the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church here in Dickinson instilled an attitude of elitism and the belief of superiority of one’s own family, Catholics, and the Catholic Church, above all other people.

Another cause for the hatred of non-local people in Dickinson, has been the oil boom that made some local families rich, while other local families remained poor.  With it not seeming right to the local people to have hatred and resentment towards their local neighbors who became rich, the local people re-directed their anger and resentment toward the non-local people.

Another cause for the hatred of non-local people in Dickinson, has been that the local people have always had work as their main focus in life.  In Dickinson, life has always been hard due to the very long and very cold winters.  Work and surviving was the primary focus of people in Dickinson.  Unlike other places in the United States where entertainment, recreation, and social activities were a big part of people’s lives, Dickinson never had this.  In Dickinson, the local people’s identities, meaning, and purpose in life, was work.

During the oil boom that occurred in Dickinson from 2007 to 2014, and especially now that the oil boom is over and many jobs have recently gone away, the local people from Dickinson have been hostile, hateful, mean, uncooperative, and undermining to their non-local co-workers.  It wasn’t until recently that I determined that the specific primary cause for this, was that local people from Dickinson get their identity, meaning, and purpose in life, from work.

Unlike other places in the United States where people have many different interests and things that are important in their lives, the local people from Dickinson have just one primary focus, that is their job.  There is a shortage of women in Dickinson, and a scarcity of attractive women.  There are not enough women to go around.  The pursuit of romantic relationships is not common in Dickinson.  There is not much reason for people to go out or socialize in Dickinson.  Nor are there many places to go in Dickinson, or things to do.

The time that other people living in other places put into playing sports, exercising, recreation, entertainment, shopping, going out, socializing, dating, and having fun, the local people from Dickinson never had that, they just put all of their time into work.  Work was their focus, meaning, identity, and purpose in life.

In summary, the local people from Dickinson are so hostile, hateful, unfriendly, bitter, resentful, malicious, malevolent, and undermining to non-local people because the Catholic Church has taught the local people to feel superior to others; there is anger and resentment over some local families becoming rich, and this anger is re-directed toward non-local people; the local people have only work as the meaning and purpose in their lives, the non-local co-workers are a threat to the local people from Dickinson in their only purpose and reason for living.

What this means for people from out of state who come to work in Dickinson, is that your local co-workers from Dickinson will try to get you to leave because you are a threat to their very existence and reason for living.

Thinking About A Normal Life In Dickinson, North Dakota

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In my previous blog post, I wrote about going to a job in Dickinson, where they wanted me to stand and work on a two foot wide elevated platform from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.  During this 15 hours of standing and working on this platform by myself, I had a lot of time to think.  One of the things that I was thinking about, was that this is bullshit, and this is not normal.

Something else that I was thinking about, was what I wrote in my recent previous blog post titled “Jobs, Employment, and Working In Dickinson, North Dakota”.  I wrote about local co-workers from Dickinson having hatred, hostility, bitterness, malevolence, maliciousness, and ill intentions towards their out of state co-workers in Dickinson.

These long work hours and remote locations, provide local co-workers from Dickinson abundant opportunity to conceive, plan, and carry out their ill intentions and meanness against their non-local co-workers.

I believe, that it is abnormal and deviant, to have extreme hatred towards others, to think up plans on how to harm others, and to carry out hostility, hatred, and maliciousness towards others.  I think that it is abnormal and wrong, to try to hatch hateful plans against others at work.

If you have ever read about convicted criminals who have committed crimes of violence against other people, sometimes against people that they have never met, or if you have watched documentaries on these convicted criminals, it is most often the case that they had unbalanced, abnormal, anti-social lives.  Often, they were reclusive, with no friends, no romantic relationships, no social activities or interaction, and they kept to themselves spending an inordinate amount of time on one thing.  This describes life for most local workers from Dickinson.

In Dickinson, there is a shortage of women, and a scarcity of attractive women.  There are not enough women to go around, and most of the women are not very attractive.  In the past several years living in Dickinson, the people that I know and have worked with, none of them were pursuing women, or any romantic relationship.  Because they were not pursuing women or any romantic relationship, there was often no reason for them to go out, go anywhere, or socialize.

There is not a lot to do in Dickinson.  People do not have many things to look forward to.  People in Dickinson spend way too much time working.  It is like the time that other people in other places use for having fun, doing things that they like, and socializing, in Dickinson this time just gets applied to work.  This is one reason why I think that the local people in Dickinson are so hateful, hostile, and resentful at work.

At this time in Dickinson, it may only be the workers from out of state, that know in other areas of the country, people “work to live”, they don’t “live to work”.  In Florida where I am from, there were many fun things for people to do all year:  Surf, sail, sailboard, water ski, jet ski, swim, scuba dive, boat, fish from boats, fish offshore, fish from bridges, fish from beaches, go crabbing, go clamming, go oystering, go shrimping, sun bathe, ride motorcycles, ride bikes, rollerblade, jog, walk, hike, play tennis, play golf, and more.  People of all ages searched for and pursued romantic relationships.

In Florida, people loved to have fun, recreate, go shopping, socialize, go out to eat, and enjoy life.  For most people in Florida, work was something that took time away from the things that they would rather be doing.

I will drop talking about Florida, and briefly use the example of another state, Arizona.  There were many fun activities in Arizona that people could do all year.  People in Arizona also liked to go shopping, socialize, and enjoy life.  People in Arizona would have liked to have spent less time working, and more time doing the things that they liked to do outside of work.

In the Dickinson area, generations of people did not have fun things or fun activities to do.  Life in the Dickinson area was very difficult.  It was difficult just to survive due to the very long and very cold winters, and the barrenness of the land.  There is still not a lot to do in Dickinson, and there is a scarcity of attractive women.

The local people from Dickinson, historically, culturally, and genetically, for generation after generation, they have gotten up way too early in the morning, sat in their dirty worn work clothes, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, talking and muttering about work for an hour, before there was even enough light outside to go do any work.  In Dickinson, the local people like to try to “sneak up on work” or try to “get a head start on work”, when really they are just wasting time being miserable, and they don’t even know it.

In Arizona or Florida, an educated business owner would see this behavior, and put an end to it.  He would probably say, “At the end of each day, that is the time to clean the garbage out of your work truck, to load the equipment and material that you will need for the following day onto your truck, and to inform the workers what they will be doing the following day.  There is no need to get here at 4:00 a.m. or 5:00 a.m., 6:00 a.m. would be the earliest you would need to get here, it is not even daylight at 6:00 a.m.  I want my employees to have a normal work-life balance.  I don’t want my employees to get burned out, be unhappy, and be unproductive.  Also, I am not going to pay overtime every week for people to get here at 5:00 a.m. half asleep, to sit around smoking, drinking coffee, and muttering.”

People in Dickinson spend way too much time at work.  This is partly because the local people from Dickinson don’t have anything or don’t know of anything that they would rather be doing.  The local people from Dickinson, the focus of their life is on work, even if they are just an oil field service worker.  And I don’t mean their focus is on excellence.  They just burrow in like a tick at their job.

They have got to get to their job early in the morning, smoke a certain amount of cigarettes, drink a certain amount of coffee, talk for a certain amount of time, and accomplish absolutely nothing for about one hour.  Then it is load equipment and material, and go get fuel, when all of this could have been done the day before.  In my observation, these activities are all attempts to make the work day longer than it needed to be.

There is not the pursuit of excellence, insight, innovation, growth, progression, or increased effectiveness of the local people at their job.  Instead the local workers from Dickinson spend their time, energy, and mental faculties on trying to find something wrong with what their co-workers are doing, and trying to find ways to hinder and undermine their co-workers.

This is what I mean when I say that the local workers from Dickinson try to burrow in to their job like a tick.  What they are doing is not particularly beneficial, helpful, or productive, it is sometimes counter productive.  They have got to get to their job early, and stay there late, like they can’t let go of their job and go do something else.  They don’t have anything else, their job is their life and their identity.

I think that this is another reason why the local people from Dickinson try to drive their co-workers away.  This job is their entire life, their identity, and their purpose.  Without this job they don’t have anywhere to go, anything to do, or any purpose in life.  I think that this is abnormal and not a very good way to live your life.

Example Of Working In Dickinson, North Dakota

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In my previous blog post titled “Jobs, Employment, And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota”, I explained that local people from Dickinson are hostile, mean, malicious, and hateful to their non-local co-workers.  I wrote some pretty harsh things in that blog post, but I stand by what I wrote, and I believe that what I wrote was truthful, honest, and accurate.  Readers are probably wondering, where do I come up with this, how did I come to this conclusion?  I will give one, recent example.

I agreed to do a job recently.  I was not given a very accurate job description, or any kind of warning.  I don’t think that there was any ill-intention in this, the people giving me the information did not know.

I had to drive about an hour from Dickinson to get to the job location.  My job, was to climb up to a two foot wide platform, to work by myself, and to be just one part of the overall work operation.

There were three significant problems with this job:  There was the requirement and expectation that I would be up on the platform, standing, for 15 hours;  It was extremely cold and windy;  There was not a railing on one side of the platform, and if I fell off this side, I would certainly die.

My thoughts were, “This is bullshit, this is fucked up.”  I had worked at heights before, I had worked at dangerous jobs before, I had worked in the cold and wind before, but not for 15 hours straight.

According to OSHA, when you are working at heights like this, where you can fall to your death, it is required that there be a continuous railing of 42″ in height, or you are tied off with a safety harness and lanyard.  There was no railing on one side, just steel that came up to knee height.  The company did not have, offer, or want the person on the platform wearing a safety harness and lanyard.  I have two safety harnesses, but I didn’t know that I would need to bring one, and I realized that they wouldn’t like me wearing one.

In this company’s and its employees’ “ignorance”, they just didn’t care to have a railing on one side of the platform, or have a safety harness for the person on the platform.  Their opinion was, “What, just don’t fall off.”  I asked what happened to the person who used to have this job before me, and they said they didn’t know what happened to him, he just didn’t come back.

It was very cold and windy on the elevated platform.  I was wearing thermal underwear, FR pants, heavy hooded FR sweatshirt, heavy hooded winter jacket, and work gloves.  After a couple of hours on the platform, I kept getting colder and colder.  I had to climb down quickly, run to my vehicle, put on a second heavy winter jacket, run back, and quickly climb back up to the platform.  I made it back up on top of the platform, just in time to do my part of the work process and not create a delay for everyone.

All day long, my hands were cold, my feet were cold, and I was generally cold.  After about eight more hours, I had to climb down again, run, get a third winter jacket to tie around my waste, run, and climb back up the platform, just in time to do my part of the work process.

When it got dark at 6:00 p.m., I couldn’t see anything.  I had to quickly climb down, and run to my vehicle to get a flashlight.  This time, I just drove my vehicle over, and parked it next to a small tanker truck and other parked equipment.

During the day when I had to urinate, I would quickly climb down and urinate beside the parked equipment.  At night, after it was dark, I would just urinate off the platform.  If I had had to poop, I could not have run to the portable toilet and turned around and run back in time, let alone go in and sit down.

We worked until 9:30 p.m. that night.  The longer that I worked, and the more tired that I became, the more careless, unworried, and not paying attention I became, plus it became dark.  That is when I caught myself a few times almost falling off the one side of the platform without a railing.

After stopping on the drive home to get fuel in my vehicle, and going to the drive thru at McDonalds, it was approximately 11:15 p.m. when I got home.  I slept for five hours, and then I had to get up and drive back to the job site by 6:00 a.m.

Do you think that I was looking forward to standing on that platform for another day from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., for 15 hours?  In the cold and the wind.  Where tripping, losing your balance, or not paying attention will result in you falling to your death.  I never planned on working or living like this.  This is not normal.

After several days of working like this, my local co-workers and work supervisor from Dickinson were not very nice or friendly to me.  It was hard to do this job, and I did not delay the work once.  It was like my work supervisor had a dislike and resentment for me.  Even though I showed up on time, did my job all day long without complaining to anyone, didn’t get hurt, didn’t make a mistake, didn’t cause any kind of delay, my local Dickinson co-workers and local Dickinson work supervisor were determined to dislike me.  They were just thinking and thinking, and hoping to be able to find fault with something I was doing, so that they could complain.

Jobs, Employment, And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota

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In many ways, the people in Dickinson are an open book.  Their behavior, actions, beliefs, and motivations are so blatant, apparent, and un-hidden, that it is almost like observing children, primitive, or low functioning people.

It might also have something to do with my age, with me having seen all of these behaviors and scenarios in Dickinson, play out before in other places.  Nevertheless, whenever I did see these types of things that occur in Dickinson in other places, I was painfully aware of the ignorance, stupidity, and backwardness of the perpetrators and accomplices.

In our private, personal, and social lives in Dickinson, we can retreat to our homes, families, and friends in order to get away from things, people, and situations that we don’t like.  However, work is a part of our lives where we are forced to deal with things, people, and situations that we would have never voluntarily been involved with.

The Biggest Point, that I wish to make in this blog post, is that many bad, ignorant, backward, malicious, and ill-intentioned people in Dickinson, use work as the opportunity to act on and fulfill their desire to cause problems for others.

I am sorry that I have not previously been able to articulate this so clearly:  There are many people in Dickinson who are uneducated, uncultured, untravelled, small minded, ignorant, close minded, bitter, hateful, malicious people.  More so than any other place that I have ever lived.  I am not saying this to be hateful, I am saying this to be truthful, honest, and accurate.

One of the reasons for the lack of education, ignorance, close mindedness, bitterness, hatefulness, and maliciousness, I believe, is the Catholic Church here in Dickinson.  One of my readers tried to explain to me, that in oil field towns, the wind-falls that some families receive, while other families receive nothing, is something that inspires bitterness, resentment, and hatred.  The families in the oil field towns that receive nothing, while their neighbors become rich, don’t feel right about taking their hatred out on local people, so they direct all of their anger, meanness, and hostility toward people from some place else.

It has been my experience in Dickinson, time after time, again and again, that local co-workers from Dickinson, have this horrible, not very hidden, intention of doing bad things to non-local co-workers.  But, to be completely honest and accurate, there is often also something wrong with the people who could not get a job anywhere in Texas, Arizona, or New York, that came all of this way in order to be able to get a job.

The third and fourth elements or factors, that makes working in Dickinson a horrible and terrible experience, time after time, is the fact that the people in Dickinson have to work more than forty hours per week, and people do not have normal home lives here.

I believe, that one of the reasons why people get up to no good at work in Dickinson, is because they are working more than forty hours per week, and spending too much time at work.  There is just too much time and opportunity for malicious, bitter, ignorant, hateful, mean people to conceive, hatch, and carry out their bad intentions towards others.  Normal people are stuck way too long at work, with people who have evil intentions towards others.

I believe, another reason why people get up to hatching and carrying out their bad intentions towards others at work in Dickinson, is because they do not have a normal home life.  There is a shortage of women in Dickinson, and a scarcity of attractive women.  Many men in Dickinson do not have anyone to look forward to seeing, talking to, spending time with, or doing activities with.  Plus, there is not a lot to do in Dickinson.  Thus, you have ignorant, uneducated, untravelled, uncultured, close minded, malicious, bitter, hateful people, who have nothing better to do than think about harming other people at work, and the opportunity to cause other people harm at work, because everyone is working too many hours.

Terrible House Of Manna In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I have been going to Thrift Stores since I was 19 years old.  All different kinds of people go to Thrift Stores, for many different reasons.  In my 30 years of experience shopping at Thrift Stores, I would say that at least half of the shoppers are not poor.

My older sister, is a much more frequent Thrift Store shopper than me, and she always has been. She used to search for vintage jeans when she was younger.  She used to like to find mechanic’s shirts or service people’s shirts that had their name embroidered on them.  She liked to buy evening dresses from the 1960s and 1970s.  But most of all, she liked furniture from the 1970s.

Many Thrift Stores had my sister’s telephone number, and they would call her right away whenever they received furniture from the 1970s, because she would get so excited and come and buy it.  My sister is not poor, she lives in a three-story, 5,000 square foot house with an elevator, on a river in Florida.

Many women who are not poor, shop at Thrift Stores.  They are looking for vintage jeans, vintage dresses, retro clothing, off-beat T-Shirts, classic shoes and boots, old belts, interesting knick-knacks, and paintings.  I have met women who buy old paintings, not for the paintings, but for the frames.  Good quality painting frames are expensive.  For low, low prices, you can buy an ugly painting, but get a good quality picture frame.

I used to like to go to Thrift Stores, to buy funny, interesting T-shirts for $4 to $5.  But sometimes in very affluent areas, I found that for some reason, very expensive clothes would get donated, that had never or seldom been worn.  Very expensive, high quality, pants, shirts, shorts, jackets, and coats would get donated.  Some of the best and nicest clothes that I had, came from Thrifts Stores.

On Monday in Dickinson, I went shopping at Runnings, Tractor Supply, Menards, Wal-Mart, Arc Aid Thrift Store, ABLE Inc. Thrift Store, Family Dollar, and the House of Manna.  There were many different things that I was looking for, and I bought something from each of the stores that I went to, except the Arc Aid Thrift Store, and the House of Manna.

The Arc Aid Thrift Store, had moved to where it is now across the street from Anytime Fitness, behind the Prairie Hills Mall.  This store was fairly nice inside, and the store clerks were nice.  I was looking for an old heavy sleeping bag to keep in my truck to use in an emergency.  This store had a lot of camouflage and hunters clothing, but no sleeping bags.

Next, I went to the ABLE Inc. Thrift Store.  Right when I walked in the door, there was a three foot tall stuffed frog, for $1.98, so I took him to the counter and told them not to let anyone take him, I wanted him.  Next, I found a very heavy, good quality sleeping bag for $8.00, which I took to the counter and put on top of the frog.  Then I found a nice black leather attache case for $2.50, which I put on top of the sleeping bag, on top of the frog, at the counter.  Then I found a nice pair of Ranger water-proof winter snow boots for $8.99, and then I didn’t find anything else that I wanted.

The ABLE Inc. Thrift Store receives donations of goods from individuals and businesses.  Then they sort through the donations, put a price on each item, and place the item in their store in the appropriate area: clothing, housewares, furniture, electronics, tools, sporting goods, office supplies, jewelry, books, etc.  They sell this merchandise in order to pay for the operation of their store and to give the remainder of the proceeds to the charity that they support.  They are happy for customers to buy as much as possible, this pays for their store and it supports their charity.

Lastly, I went to the House of Manna, and I wish that I hadn’t.  Within approximately one second of walking in the door of the House of Manna, a man sitting at a desk with a registration book, said to me that I needed to register and show him my driver’s license.  I was in disbelief, and I didn’t like this.  I said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought that this was a Thrift Store.”

The man at the desk said that this was a Thrift Store, but that I would be required to register, sign in, and show my identification.  I asked him, why would I be required to register and and show my identification.  He replied, “We need to check to make sure that people are not coming in more often than they should.”

I didn’t like this at all.  I felt like saying, whoa, wait a minute, I’m not poor, I was just looking to buy things, I don’t want anything for free.  I didn’t like that just walking in the door, they immediately assumed five things about me that weren’t true:  that I was poor; that I was needing help; that I was looking for something for free; that I was dishonest and untrustworthy; and that I needed to be monitored and regulated by them.

I didn’t say, whoa, hold on, I’m not poor or looking for charity, because there were other people in there shopping, who may have been in financial need.  Yes, I got the idea that somehow the House of Manna felt that their merchandise was for people in financial need, but I didn’t know this before I went to their store.  I thought that is was a normal Thrift Store.

I felt like, a better way to address people who arrived at their store would be, “Hello, have you been a customer here before?  No?  We are not a typical Thrift Store, our intention is to provide our merchandise to people who are in financial need and unable to afford very much.  Are you in financial need?  No?  There are other Thrift Stores in Dickinson where everyone is welcome to buy as much as they want, but here, this merchandise is strictly for people who have a financial need.”

When I got home, I looked up the House of Manna on the internet, and I read their store website.  I read the origin, history, philosophy, and purpose of the store.  Then, I read reviews of the store on Google.  It turns out, that the majority of the reviewers felt the same way that I did.  That the store was hostile and overbearing.

It turns out, that the people who were in financial need, they didn’t like being treated the way that they were treated.  No one likes bad things being assumed about them, being talked down to, leveled, and demeaned, whether they need help, or not.  No one, not even the poor people who need help, like it being assumed that they are so dishonest and untrustworthy, that they need to register and present their identification in order to be monitored and tracked.

The House of Manna, is supposedly run by a group of non-denominational “Christians”.  How would this group of non-denominational Christians like it, if when they went to the bank, the grocery store, the gas station, Runnings, or Menards, someone met them at the door, every time they came to these businesses, and said, “You have to register, sign in, and show your identification.  We know you are up to no good, and you will probably try to take advantage of us some way.”  This is basically what they are doing at the House of Manna.

I ask readers to please not donate to the House of Manna, or offer assistance to the House of Manna, until the Board of Directors can recognize the importance of treating all people with respect and dignity, especially, especially people who are poor and in financial need.

I have seen this before, and probably every adult has seen this before, where a gift, help, or assistance, is not offered graciously, but there are strings attached or some kind of other accompanying nastiness.  People who receive a gift or help, expect that the giver has good intentions, but they are sometimes shocked to see that it is accompanied by condescension, belittlement, resentment, a put down, a jab, insult, or some other kind of hostility.  True Christians don’t offer help, assistance, or charity on the condition that the receiver acknowledge that they are no good and not trustworthy.

Moving Away From Everything

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When I was in high school in the late 1980s in Florida, myself, my classmates, and most of the people in the town where I lived were optimistic and positive about life.  Life was pleasant and enjoyable in this small coastal town.

After I graduated from high school, I went to a small private liberal arts college in Virginia.  The faculty were mostly good, nice, intelligent, considerate, and helpful people.  The students were mostly positive, entertaining, sociable, and fun loving people.

I was supposed to transfer to UVA or Georgia Tech, but that didn’t happen.  I ended up going to the University of Florida, which was the last place I wanted to be.  The University of Florida was 35,000 pushy, aggressive, ambitious, scheming young people, and hateful, mean, bitter professors who had to fail out as many people as possible in order for the university system to work.  Though UF was the most difficult school to get into in Florida, and everyone there was very intelligent and capable of getting a college degree, the professors had to try to discourage most students from being there, there were just too many students.

I didn’t like my experience at the University of Florida at all, I wish that I would not have gone through it.  Most of the students in the mechanical engineering department suffered from Stockholm Syndrome.  Within about a year of graduating from UF, I had to move to Tampa for work.  Tampa was full of pushy, aggressive, ambitious, scheming people also.  I didn’t like living in Tampa.  I was very unhappy, uneasy, and uncomfortable there.

I very much wanted to get away from crowded places that seemed to attract the most obnoxious people, and bring out the worst in people.  In 2002, I put most of my belongings in storage, and I headed to the western U.S. in my truck.

I didn’t care if where I moved, I was sitting outside of a single-wide trailer in the desert of Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, or New Mexico with tumble weeds rolling by, this would be a great improvement over Tampa as far as I was concerned.

I wasn’t looking to find anything.  I was looking to get away from so many things that I didn’t like.  I didn’t like the super aggressive Blacks and Hispanics that were like some kind of vermin with a life span of three years.  I didn’t like the phony, fake, wanna be, con artist, ambitious stupid people.  I didn’t like the traffic.  I didn’t like the constant, unwanted noise.  I didn’t like the difficulty involved in just going to the store or going to get something to eat.  I wanted to get away from all of this, forever.

I stayed in a small town in Colorado for a while.  Just by chance and by luck, I happened to arrive at a very beautiful, heavily forested area of Arizona, and I stayed there for about five years.  I wanted to find a different area that was similar to this town in Arizona, but that was a little bit bigger, and where property was less expensive.  I moved to a slightly larger town in Idaho, that was much less expensive than where I lived in Arizona, but it was not as stunningly beautiful.

This plain, more ordinary, farming area of Idaho was where I finally bought a home on five acres.  It was quiet, peaceful, not overly developed, and I had a view of farm fields that stretched out to the mountains in the distance.

I knew that this is what I wanted to do.  Whether this was the best idea, perhaps it wasn’t.  To my surprise, my father who was born in Florida, and was now in his 70s, he had had enough of Florida, and he moved to a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.  It was hard to believe that my father was willing to leave the town that he had grown up in, and the people that he had known for his entire life.

When I was living in Arizona and Idaho, I saw that people from crowded areas on the west coast and the east coast of the U.S., were selling everything that they had, in order to move to less crowded, less developed, less expensive, low crime areas.  I later found out that many people in Florida were doing the same thing, and moving to North Carolina.

There are three well-known people, that appear to have done the same thing that I did, felt the same way that I did, at about the same time that I did.  Two of them, I didn’t know anything about them at the time.  I wanted to bring these three people up, because a lot is known about their lives, what they felt, and what they believed.  Also, they are interesting people that I want to mention to readers, and tell a little bit about them.  They are Chris McCandless, Art Bell, and William Cooper.  This will be in my next blog post.

How Has This Blog Website Affected My Employment?

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I hope that the people who don’t like me or my blog website will read this post.

In the summer of 2014, I began working for a small, locally owned company in Dickinson, North Dakota.  I liked the work that I was doing, better than any work that I had done in the past.  When I started with this company, I was pleased with the money that I was making.  I made about $25,000 in the first six months.

Then, there came the winter work slow down.  The owner of the company had a talk with me in person.  He asked me if I would like to be the manager of the company, and I said that I would.  He explained to me that he planned on retiring in two years.  He said that if I could manage the company O.K. for two years, he would give the company to me.

I was contented with the money that I had been making at this company.  I was happy that I was asked to be the manager.  I didn’t know if I would be able to afford this company, even if it was given to me, because of the possibility of a customer not paying.  If a customer didn’t pay, and there was a history of a government customer not paying for several months, I would not have enough money in the bank to meet payroll for three months.  I didn’t know if I wanted to own this company or not.

January and February were lean months, but there was a good project in March where I made about $7,500 that month.  I liked the work, and I liked the amount of money that I was being paid.  The owner of the company was fairly nice, and he did not bother the employees unnecessarily.  The owner of the company left the employees alone to do their work.

This small locally owned company did various small projects each month.  These small projects were always in town.  The company did not make very much money on these small projects, and the employees did not make very much money on these small projects.  Nevertheless, the company owner liked doing them because he believed that they were good for business, these small projects could lead to bigger projects, it was good advertising, and it was good public relations.

The older, experienced, long-time employees, did not want to do these small projects.  They were a pain in the ass, they didn’t pay much, they interfered with working on bigger projects, and they were always “on front street” in town, where everybody could see what you were doing, and bother you while you were working.  Before long, I clearly recognized why the older, experienced long-time employees did not want to do these small projects in town.

What was actually happening, and I didn’t like it too much, was that the older, experienced, long-time employees who refused to do the small projects “on front street” in town, they were actually getting to work on bigger long-term projects outside of town, and they were making a lot more money than me.  Because I was the manager, I kind of felt that it was my duty to do these small projects in town, which were more for advertisement and public relations, than an opportunity to make money.

I tried to be professional and do a good job on these small projects in town, but the truth was, because I was doing these types of small projects regularly, it was keeping me from making very much money.  The big, long-term projects out in the middle of nowhere, that is where I wanted to be.

This blog post is mostly for the people that came to figure out or find out that it was me writing these blog posts about Dickinson.  Even before anyone knew or had any idea that it was me writing these blog posts about Dickinson, when I was working in town, people would sometimes bother me when I was working.  I don’t mean the casual, pleasant, polite conversations.  I mean when people come up to you, and you can tell that they are trying to instigate a fight or antagonize you, because of their disrespectful attitude, inappropriate familiarity with you, or leading and inappropriate questions.

I would try to avoid, discourage, and not be drawn into any kind of conflict while working in town.  The truth is, that I wanted to keep my job, and not lose my job by getting into some kind of conflict while working in town.  It was not that I liked working in town, I didn’t like working in town because these projects interfered with me making money.  I wanted to keep my job so that I could work on the bigger long-term projects outside of town.

Now, it looks like it is the case, that some people have figured out or found out that it is me who is writing these blog posts about Dickinson.  The people who don’t like me or my blog posts, have probably informed my employer, and have told him, “I don’t think that it is right for you to have him work here.”  Now my employer, considering the people who have voiced their concerns, has probably come to the conclusion that he can not have me working in town “on front street” because these small projects are all about good advertising, and good public relations.

It may be the case now, that the only place that my employer can have me work, is out in the middle of nowhere on some long-term project where there aren’t any people around.  This is what I wanted in the first place.

Dickinson, North Dakota Has Removed The Welcome Matt

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In my previous two blog posts, I explained that Dickinson, North Dakota has removed the Welcome Matt, and I explained the reasons why.  I will not go into these reasons again, instead I will explain what this means, more clearly and more plainly.

If you are living in a different state, and you are considering moving to Dickinson to work,  I want to caution you, and give you some things to consider.

The local people in Dickinson do not like workers from out of state.  They did not like out of state workers during the oil boom, and they dislike out of state workers even more now that the oil boom has gone away.

Many oil field jobs have gone away, local people are making less money, work hours have been reduced, and overtime hours have been reduced.  Some local people have lost their jobs, and some local people are having difficulty in finding a new job.  The winter work slow down is here, there will be fewer jobs, layoffs, and it will be much harder to find a job this winter in Dickinson.

During the oil boom, the local co-workers in Dickinson, were often hostile, hateful, uncooperative, mean, and undermining to out of state workers.  Now, the local people in Dickinson not only hate out of state workers, they feel that out of state workers are a threat to them in preventing them from finding job, taking a job that could have gone to a local person, or keeping their job while a local person is laid off or fired.

I would not come to Dickinson now from out of state without having a good solid job offer, and a second or third prospective employer.  Your prospective employer may be a good person, their management team may be good people, but once you get out to your office, counter, warehouse, truck, route, job site, or oil field, your local Dickinson co-workers may have other plans for you, specifically, you not being here.

In my previous two blog posts, I described something called the “Dickinson Rule”.  What this means is, the local people in Dickinson have adopted this rule, where local people are given preference in hiring, promotion, work assignments, overtime, and should be the last people to be reprimanded, demoted, laid off, or fired.  People from out of state, are not due equal treatment or fair treatment.

If you are a worker from out of state, be prepared to not receive complete instructions when required, not receive important information when necessary, be given incorrect instructions and information, be assigned faulty equipment, faulty equipment to not be repaired, to not be given the necessary tools, to not receive cooperation, to have your work performance reported as unsatisfactory, to not be paid for hours worked, and to not be paid as agreed.  These things are the implementation and application of the “Dickinson Rule”.

I am going to try to write enough about this “Dickinson Rule”, so that company owners and company managers can fully understand and realize that this is happening.  I believe that many company owners and managers have spotted some of these things, but I doubt that many of them are completely aware of everything that is going on.  Further, I think that there are company owners and managers who do not care.

I also want to write enough about this “Dickinson Rule”, so that workers from out of state will know about this ahead of time.  Workers from out of state can plan ahead, what they think that they would do in their particular work situation, when they don’t get cooperation, complete information, correct instructions, fully functioning equipment, all the necessary tools, pay for all hours worked, or the pay that was agreed upon.

One of the things that out of state workers can do, is say, “No, I don’t want to work for you company because of the Dickinson Rule.”  If enough out of state workers call this out as their reason for not accepting a job offer, not coming to work, quitting and leaving, then company owners and managers may have to address this problem, and try to put an end to the implementation of the “Dickinson Rule” at their company.

Starting Over Writing About People In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I have lived in Dickinson, North Dakota since 2011.  I have been writing blog posts about living in Dickinson for the past three years.  I have been seeing such a significant change in the people in Dickinson during the past several months, that I believe a transition has occurred.

There was an oil boom in North Dakota from 2007 through 2014.  In 2015, there was a sharp drop in the price of oil.  The number of operating oil drill rigs decreased, work in the oil field slowed down, other businesses slowed down, and many out of state workers returned home to the states where they came from.

Dickinson became less crowded, less busy, quieter, and calmer.  However, the attitude, outlook, mood, and behavior of people in Dickinson did not change that much from what it had been during the oil boom years of 2007 through 2014.

In 2015 and 2016, people in Dickinson wondered and speculated whether the oil boom would come back.  People’s opinions would change daily depending on what they had heard, read, or what other people had persuaded them to believe.  No matter what we thought, we were all waiting to see what actually happened.

In 2017, I believe that most people in Dickinson had concluded that the oil boom was not coming back, whether they admitted this out loud or not.  Reaching this conclusion, every individual considered what this meant for them, how would this affect them.

In the Fall of 2017, it was like everyone in Dickinson had changed overnight.  It was like they had all changed in unison, their attitudes, outlook, mood, and behavior.

In Dickinson every winter, there is a work slow down, and a work shut down.  It becomes so cold, that it is difficult to work outside.  It begins to snow, and the ground freezes.  Farmers don’t do any work with their fields, construction companies can’t do many types of work because it isn’t practical, personal work projects and commercial work projects can’t be done due to the weather.

In the winter, there are fewer jobs, it is harder to find a job, there are fewer ways to make money, and it is harder to make money.  It is a time of financial hardship for many people in Dickinson because they are not working.  This year, as winter approached, people in Dickinson had already been thinking that the oil boom was over, and it wasn’t coming back.

I think that this is why, I saw a sudden universal change in everyone in Dickinson during the past couple of months.  I think that everyone in Dickinson is preparing for hard times.

I wrote about this some in my previous blog post.  For the past three years, I had been writing that the people from Dickinson were unfriendly, and that they did not like the workers who came from out of state during the oil boom to work in Dickinson.  The unfriendliness, hostility, lack of cooperation, hatred, and undermining of out of state workers that I had written about for the past three years, all of sudden got worse and more severe.

What I thought was happening, was the local people from Dickinson had their wages reduced, hours reduced, overtime hours reduced, they had lost their job, or they were unable to get a job, and they felt that they had more of right to make money and earn a living than the workers who had come from out of state.

With the realization of the local people in Dickinson that the oil boom was not coming back, that there would be fewer and fewer jobs in the oil field, that winter is coming where there is a work shut down and reduced work, the local people from Dickinson universally decided all at once that their “benevolence” toward people from out of state was over.

Approximately one-half of the employers and companies in the Dickinson area, are not from Dickinson.  Examples are:  Menards, Wal-Mart, Runnings, Marathon Oil, Continental Oil, Whiting Oil, Tesoro Oil, Conoco Philips Oil, Lufkin, Halliburton, BJ, Nabors Drilling, Scull Construction, JE Dunn Construction, Knife River Construction, MDU, BNSF, Family Fare Grocery Store, Cash Wise Grocery Store, Sanford Health, St. Alelxius Health, and Dickinson State University.

However, even though approximately one-half of the employers and companies in the Dickinson area are not from Dickinson, some of these companies do pay attention to whether they are hiring local people from Dickinson, or non-local people.  One reason why they pay attention to whether they are hiring local people from Dickinson, is because their management and their workers are from Dickinson, and these people already working at the company have collectively started enforcing the “Dickinson Rule”, whether the company owners wanted this or not.

Non locally owned companies in Dickinson that appear to try to hire mostly local people from Dickinson whenever possible are:  Runnings, Whiting Oil, MDU, Family Fare Grocery Store, St. Alexius Health, and Dickinson State University.

Non locally owned companies in Dickinson that appear to have slight favoritism to hiring local people from Dickinson are:  Marathon Oil, Continental Oil, Conoco Philips Oil.  This slight favoritism may be because these oil companies want people who work in the field to be familiar with the area, knowledgeable about the area, and accustomed to the weather.

Non locally owned companies in Dickinson who appear to have no preference in hiring people based on where they are from:  Menards, Wal-Mart, Tesoro Oil, Lufkin, Halliburton, BJ, Nabors Drilling, Scull Construction, JE Dunn Construction, Knife River Construction, BNSF, Cash Wise Grocery Store, and Sanford Health.

Because of the large amount of people that work at Menards, Wal-Mart, Tesoro Oil, Halliburton, BJ, Knife River Construction, Cash Wise, and Sanford Health, these businesses could not stay open if they tried to only hire people from Dickinson.  For that matter, all the other non locally owned companies in Dickinson that have some preference for hiring local people from Dickinson, Runnings, Whiting, MDU, Family Fare, St. Alexuis Health, DSU, Marathon, Continental, and Conoco Philips could not stay open if they tried to only hire people from Dickinson.

The local people from Dickinson almost unanimously do not want people who are from out of state to be living in Dickinson now, but the non locally owned companies in Dickinson need the out of state workers in order to have enough employees to stay open and function.

The locally owned companies in Dickinson, they still have some out of state workers employed with their company.  Several example are MBI, Nuverra, Winn Construction, Northern Improvement, and McDonalds.  These companies would not have enough workers if they did not hire some people from out of state.

I believe that I just explained rather thoroughly up above, that both the non locally owned companies and the locally owned companies in Dickinson have had to hire workers from out of state in order to keep their businesses open and functioning.  I explained that some of the non locally owned companies in Dickinson, do have a preference for hiring local people from Dickinson.  Because some non locally owned companies have so many local people from Dickinson working in them, these local people at these companies have begun applying or enforcing the “Dickinson Rule” in hiring, and also in the work place.

The point that I want to make, the “Transition” that I believe occurred in 2017, the almost universal and unanimous change in the people in Dickinson that seemed to occur overnight, was the passing of the “Dickinson Rule” into law in Dickinson.

The “Dickinson Rule”, is that the local people from Dickinson are to be given preference in all things over people from out of state.  The local people from Dickinson should be the first to be hired, the first to be promoted, the last to be reprimanded, the last to be demoted, the last to be let go, the last to be fired.  In all dealings, business, financial, social, medical, religious, and enforcement of law, local people from Dickinson have precedence over people from out of state.  People from out of state are not due equal treatment.  Whenever and wherever possible, the people from out of state should be encouraged to leave Dickinson.

Starting Over Writing About Dickinson, North Dakota

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Dickinson, North Dakota has changed so much over the past 12 months, that I need to start over, and begin again in describing Dickinson, North Dakota.

The economy, business, business practices, real estate, construction, construction companies, oil field, oil field companies, employment, jobs, crime, people’s attitudes, and people’s behavior have changed so much, that I have to completely start over in describing what Dickinson, North Dakota is like now.

For my own personal reference and orientation, in thinking about Dickinson, and describing Dickinson, I will have to be clear, that there is a big difference between what Dickinson was like 2007 through 2016, and what Dickinson had changed into by the end of 2017.

The price of oil fell drastically in 2015, causing the oil boom in North Dakota to begin slowing down.  There were changes that occurred in western North Dakota as the number of operating oil drill rigs declined.  The oil field work slowed down, which in turn caused there to be a slow down in the rest of the economy in western North Dakota.  Many workers from out of state returned home to the states where they came from.

When the oil boom slowed down in 2015, Dickinson became calmer and quieter.  There became less people in Dickinson, and less traffic.  Some oil field businesses closed, other businesses closed, and some residents moved out of state.

However, the character, mood, attitudes, and mentality in Dickinson remained the same as what it had been during the last years of the oil boom, up until 2017.

I believe that 2017 is a clear cut-off point, to where everything changed in Dickinson.  I believe that all through the beginning of 2017, virtually everyone in Dickinson realized that the oil boom was over, whether they said it out loud or not.  Throughout Dickinson, everyone considered how the oil boom being over, would affect them.  By the end of 2017, everyone’s outlook, attitude, mentality, and behavior changed.

To me, who had been living in Dickinson since 2011, there came a point in late 2017, that it seemed like everyone in Dickinson had changed over night. It was like the people in Dickinson had changed in unison.

In writing this blog post, and in discussing it, I see that the origin of this change was the sharp decline in the price of oil, the slow down in the oil field, the decline in business and the number of out of state workers, the continuation of the slow down, and the gradual realization by the people in Dickinson that the oil boom was over, and that it was not coming back.  However, the outlook, attitude, mentality, and behavior of people in Dickinson seemed to change all of a sudden, in late 2017.

The people in Dickinson became less friendly.  That is right, the people in Dickinson became even less friendly.  For the past three years, I have described the people in Dickinson as being unfriendly, but now, they have become distinctly even more unfriendly.

There is becoming a greater distinction and division between the people who are from Dickinson, and the people who are not from Dickinson.  During the oil boom that occurred in Dickinson from 2007 through 2014, the people from Dickinson did not like the out of state workers.  Now that the oil boom is over, the people from Dickinson dislike people from out of state even more.

Working in Dickinson from 2011 through 2014, my co-workers from Dickinson were sometimes hostile, unfriendly, uncooperative, not helpful, resentful, and undermining.  Beginning in 2015, I could see that the people from Dickinson, were becoming even more hostile, unfriendly, uncooperative, resentful, and undermining with their co-workers, both with local and out of state workers, but much more so with out of state workers.

What is happening is this:  The local people from Dickinson are making less money, working less hours, and working less overtime.  The local people from Dickinson have lost their jobs, and have had difficulty in getting jobs.  The local people in Dickinson, they want to be able to afford to pay for the things that they have, not lose their car or their house, and be able to live.  The local people in Dickinson, believe that they should have more of a right to work and earn a living, than workers from out of state.

Many or most of the local people in Dickinson, did not like people from out of state coming to Dickinson to work during the oil boom.  The local people were hostile and unfriendly to the people who were from out of state, during the oil boom.  Now, with local people making less money, having lost their job, and not being able to get a job, their dislike for people who are from out of state, is much greater.

With work having slowed down in Dickinson, many out of state workers having moved away, traffic being lower, businesses being slower, things being quieter and calmer, there are a few other ways that Dickinson had changed distinctly by 2017.

Apartment rent and house rent have decreased greatly.  The new apartments that were built during the oil boom, are now much more affordable.  The older apartments and older homes, the rent on these are now very low.

The house prices in Dickinson have come down some, but not as much as they should have, considering that the oil boom is over.  There are several reasons why the house prices remain high, higher than they should be:  Real estate agents and property owners are deliberately trying to keep house prices high through their own efforts;  some home owners do not understand and will not face reality;  some home owners mistakenly think that the oil boom will return any minute now;  some people are just so hung up with what they paid for their home during the oil boom, that they will not price it for what the market is now;  some people paid so much for their home during the oil boom that they owe much more than their home is worth now.

I will mention one more way that Dickinson had changed significantly by 2017.  There was an increase in property theft in Dickinson in 2016 and 2017.  In reading the Dickinson Press newspaper “Crime And Courts” and the “Police Blotter” over the past several years, I noticed that there were more and more thefts from businesses, homes, garages, and automobiles.  In 2016, the amount property theft appeared to be distinctly greater than in previous years.  Now in 2017, property theft seems to be a permanent, daily, ongoing thing in Dickinson.  Dickinson is now a high theft area.

Warning About Banking, Debit Cards, And Paying Bills

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I wanted to share some very important information with readers about Banking, Debit Cards, and Paying Bills.  There are some very bad things that can happen, that I want to point out to you.  Some of these things have happened to me, and people that I know.

The very bad things that happen, are the result of people placing too much trust in how things “should work”, “usually work”, or are “supposed to work”, instead of thinking “What is the worst that could happen?”.  As negative as this sounds, where financial transactions are concerned, you should be thinking, “What is the worst that could happen?”

  1. Many, many people, use “AutoPay” to allow utility companies to directly withdraw money from their checking account for their monthly electric, gas, or water bill.  It sometimes happens, that there is an error or mix up in the metering record, and some people have had all of the money in their checking account withdrawn by a utility company, thousands of dollars, all of the money that they had.  Then, the utility companies that have removed all of the money from someone’s checking account have said, “We have found no error in the meter reading or the meter.  The charges are correct.”  Some people have had to fight for months to get their money back, and the utility company could not care less.  Please, do not keep all of your money in one checking account.
  2. Many people use their debit card to pay for fuel.  It has been in the news, where people used their debit card to pay for fuel at a gas station, and they later found that all of the money in their checking account has been removed, several thousand dollars, for one purchase of gasoline.  There was a mistake at the pump, where the pump electronically registered that hundreds of gallons of fuel were pumped.  All of the money that these people had, was removed from their checking account.  The response from the billing company and the bank were, “There appears to be no error.”  The billing company and the bank could not care less.  It took these people several months to get their money back.  Please, do not keep all of your money in one checking account.
  3. I recently viewed my on-line bank statement for my checking account.  I saw that my check for my monthly credit card payment, had been drawn against my account, and that my credit card payment was received on time.  About one week later, I received an e-mail from my credit card company stating that my payment had not been received.  I had to telephone my credit card company, insist that they had cashed my check, give them the check number, check date, date it was drawn on my account, and give them the transaction number.  It took the credit card company two weeks to find out that my check payment had been applied to someone else’s account.  No apology.
  4. It has happened to my father, my grandmother, and other friends of mine, that an employee, worker, or relative, has removed a check from the middle of a book of checks, and written a check payable to them, and forged the account holder’s signature.  When this was discovered by the account holder viewing their bank statements and what checks had been drawn on their account, I know of one instance when the bank said, “So what.  What are we supposed to do about it?”  I had always thought, that when someone steals a check, and forges a check, that this is treated as a fraudulent transaction, and that the account holder is not responsible for this fraudulent transaction.  This can be a very bad situation, when the bank does not want to cooperate.  Please, do not keep all of your money in one checking account.
  5. I have completed a deposit slip, handed the bank teller the deposit slip and the checks to be deposited, received a receipt, and walked away.  While walking away and looking at the deposit receipt, I noticed that the deposit was made to someone else’s account.  Please, look at your transaction receipts.
  6. I have sent a fax to my insurance agent when my vehicle insurance renewal was due, listing the coverages that I wanted for each vehicle and trailer.  Rather than requiring my insurance agent to return a fax to me with a price for each item, I just asked him for the grand total, and I paid by credit card.  I later found out, that my insurance agent had failed/forgotten to insure the truck that I was driving, though it was one of the vehicles listed on the fax that I had sent to him.  Had I gotten into a vehicle accident driving a truck with no insurance, I would have been financially responsible for property damage and people’s medical bills.
  7. For about ten years, my father had been paying for an insurance policy on a house in a foreign country.  He would pay by check, once each year.  He would see that the check for the insurance policy was drawn on his bank account, that the check was received by the due date.  On approximately the eleventh year, my father talked to a different person than he normally dealt with at the insurance company.  The insurance company reviewed their files very carefully, but there was no such account or policy with their company.  What had happened was, this particular insurance agent had created a fake policy and a fake account that did not actually exist with this insurance company.  When he received the insurance payment check for this policy each year, he just went to the bank and cashed the check, there was no real insurance policy.
  8. As in example #7 above, where an employee of an insurance company was able to either deposit or cash a check that was not made payable to him personally, this does happen under certain circumstances.  It has happened to business owners that I know, who routinely send their administrative assistants to the bank with checks and deposit slips, that this has led to financial fraud.

It begins with a business owner entrusting an administrative assistant to take checks to the bank with a deposit slip, to deposit these checks into a company account.  Either right away, or before long, the deposit slips are in the administrative assistant’s hand writing.  Soon, the administrative assistant is asked to deposit some of the checks into this business account, other checks into that business account, and possibly even a personal account.  Next, this does happen, the business owner needs cash, and he sends the administrative assistant to the bank with checks, a deposit slip, and cash back requested.  Or, the business owner needs cash, and he sends the administrative assistant to the bank to cash a check.  Once this has happened, an administrative assistant who desperately needs money, will wait for the chance to take checks to the bank to be deposited, and fill out a deposit slip with cash back requested, this time the cash is for themselves.  Or, they will just cash a check that was payable to the business.

Once administrative assistants have been going to the bank each week to make company deposits, and these deposits have had some variety to them, such as deposits to different business accounts, personal accounts, joint accounts, and deposits with cash back, or even check cashing, the bank tellers have no way of knowing when the administrative assistant is doing something that he/she is not supposed to be doing.

Look Up “Escort Of Italy, Welcome To Italy Escort Service” The Best Site Ever

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Important Note To Readers:  When I first wrote this blog post, I had just looked up and found “Escort Of Italy”.  I read their home page, and I looked at their photo gallery of escorts.  I was impressed with their uninhibited, unashamed, and business-like approach to offering their escorts, and I could not believe how perfect and beautiful their escorts were. 

I thought that this was just a cultural difference between the United States and Italy.  I thought that it would not hurt women readers in the U.S. to see this cultural difference.  Initially, I did not know that you could click on each of the escort’s photographs in the gallery, and that it would give their age, height, weight, nationality, and explicitly state everything that they were willing to do sexually.  I was not intending to lead my readers to something so sexually explicit, so I am cautioning the readers now to not click on the photos if they don’t want to see this.

I did not want to remove this blog post, because to the male Oil Field workers, this is like a dream come true.  If only we could have this in the United States, life would be so wonderful.  We would probably all be driving $1,000 automobiles in order to spend the rest of our money on these women every week.  But I am cautioning the women readers in the United States, please don’t click on these escort’s photographs because you will likely be offended, and I was not trying to offend women readers. 

I have lived in Dickinson, North Dakota for approximately five years now.  In those five years, in my travels through Dickinson, New England, South Heart, Belfield, Gladstone, Taylor, Richardton, Watford City, Killdeer, Bismarck, and New Town, I have seen a total of approximately 50 attractive women.  Approximately half of these women were married.  The other half probably had boyfriends.

There is a shortage of women, and a scarcity of attractive women in North Dakota.  In Dickinson, the ratio of men to women is approximately 3 to 1.  In Watford City the ratio of men to women is approximately 8 to 1.  In Williston the ratio of men to women may be 10 to 1.  There are not enough women to go around.

The police in Dickinson, Watford City, Williston, and Bismarck try to not allow prostitution.  The police in North Dakota create fake advertisements for escorts, and then arrest the men when they show up for their appointment, causing them to lose their jobs.  The second effect of the police trying to not allow prostitution in North Dakota, is that only the most hideous looking drug addict prostitutes are willing to risk working in North Dakota.

The only attractive women that I ever see, are on the internet.  The women that I see in Dickinson, are not even the same species as attractive women.  Only the out of state workers even know what I am talking about.  In order to prove this, I looked up an escort service in Italy.  In Italy, they think that it is normal for men to want to spend time with an attractive woman.  In Italy, women are attractive.

On the Escort of Italy website, they proudly show the photographs of each of their escorts, you can pick any one of these escorts that you want.  They have approximately fifty women that are incredibly beautiful, healthy, dignified, and perfect:

“You are welcome to our high class escort agency Italy, offering you the best female escorts Italy for hotel or private dating, exclusive girlfriend experience, travel and vacation escort with charming Italia Girls, VIP Escort Girls Italy for business occasions and many more. If you are looking for pleasure and comfort, then you have come to the right place. Our elegant Italy Escorts will meet the most subtle expectations of a lonely man who is eager to find love and companionship in Italia. We offer our clients the finest attractive Escorts In Milan, escort girls Rome, and Turin Escorts. Our Italy Escort agency provide both incall and outcall services for the guests and residents of the country.

Our main goal is a quality Italia Escort Service for gentlemen. We understand that every client has unique requirements, so just let us know what you want, and we will find you exactly what you ask for. In our escort Agency Milan, escort Agency Rome and Torino Escort Service we select only the best Italy Girls, based on their beauty and individuality. With our escorts In Italy you can rest assured that Italy Call Girls will fulfill all your expectations in most impeccable manner. Escort Girl Italia services are professional in their approach, because we know that discretion and reliability is important for our clients. With our Italia Escorts you will receive the best pleasing escort in Milano, escort In Rome and Torino Escort services.

We are determined to give you an exclusive Italy Girl company for your business appointments – best Milan Escorts, Roma Girls, and escorts In Torino for a night, not mentioning sensual moments during fairs and journeys. We select only the best girls in Italy – escort Girls Italia have charm and personality, and can make clients comfortable at all times. Each of our Italy call girl – Milano call girl, Rome Call Girl and escort Girl Torino – has great figure, is friendly, elegant and discreet. In order to provide you with the first class service, all our girls present online portfolio with photos and detailed description, making sure you receive unforgettable experience. Every escortforum proves that our ladies know how to perform the best Italy Massage. Italy escort services are available 24*7 with escort Girls Milano, girls in Rome or Torino Girls ready to serve you in the most exclusive way. They want to give you highest possible satisfaction, so that you wanted to enjoy escort girl Italy service again and again.”

You will have to go look at their escorts on their website to get a complete understanding of what they are offering.  I didn’t know when I first wrote this blog post, that you could click on the photograph of each escort, and then it would give their age, height, weight, nationality, and list what they were willing to do sexually in explicit detail, which was surprising to me, I didn’t know.  This information is useful for men who are going to hire one of these escorts, but I wasn’t intending to lead my readers to anything so sexually explicit.  I want my readers to be forewarned not to click on any of these women’s photographs if they think that these sexual details are something that they do not want to see.

I understand that the women readers in the U.S. may not want to see these women posing the way that they are, but I want the readers to see that these very attractive women have chosen to make money this way.  These women may make more money than doctors, dentists, and lawyers in their country, which is why they decided to do this.

I sent an e-mail asking for prices in U.S. dollars, one hour is $270, two hours $475.  You have to name the woman that you want, the date, and the time, and that is what you will get.  That is exactly what I would like to do, to pick the woman that I want, which I would pick “Arina” with long dark hair, and I would look forward to seeing her all week.  For about ten minutes, I seriously considered putting my house and cars up for sale, so that I could go to Italy and be with one of these escorts for a couple of times per week, until the money ran out, to make up for what I have been missing.  Maybe I can get the money some other way.

Why can’t we have this in the United States?  What is wrong with us?  Most of what I have seen in the news this week, is women making allegations of being sexually harassed by men.  O.K. women, you don’t want to be sexually harassed or bothered.  Can we please have escorts like these in Italy?  Why not?

I don’t want to have children.  I don’t think that I should plan on getting married because it would likely not work out.  There are not any women in Dickinson that I am interested in dating.  I don’t want to date someone that I am not interested in and not attracted to, and I don’t want to date someone that is not interested in me or attracted to me.  It would be nice to look forward to seeing Alexandra, Oliviya, Arina, Fiona, or Victoria every week.  I wish that we could have this here.  I would be so happy.

I can’t believe this, these escorts are so beautiful, and all you have to do is pay money, and they will be there, on time, with no arguing, griping, complaining, bitching, trying to start a fight, and they will have sex with you without wasting your time and frustrating you for weeks.  This is too good to be true, but it is true, but not in the United States it isn’t.

If There Is Any Reason For Our Lives, It Is Probably For Learning

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Many times I have considered what is the meaning for our lives.  Some people have lives with love, happiness, fulfillment, good health, and comfort.  Other people have lives with pain, misery, hardship, sickness, and suffering.  How could this be, this doesn’t seem fair, just, equitable, or right.

The fact that some people have completely happy lives, and some people have completely horrible lives until the day that they die, makes one even wonder if or how there can be a God.  How could God allow this to happen, why does he allow so much suffering, horrors, and tragedy to afflict people?  What is the point and the purpose in all of this?

I think that it even says several places in the Bible, that you won’t and can’t know or understand God’s plans and purposes, something like “His ways are unsearchable…”  Sometimes I wonder if clever people didn’t write the Bible, and think up things to say that would keep people following along, even when their good deeds, good intentions, devoutness, piety, and faith didn’t result in them being spared from tragedy and horrors.  Hey, “No one can understand the ways of the Lord…”

It may be true that God has a plan and a reason for every person and everything.  What would or could this plan be?  Why are we here on Earth, each one of us?  It is especially hard to understand that there could be any beneficial purpose when children are born into horrible circumstances, mistreated and harmed every day, and then killed, which is what I have read about in the news recently, I don’t even want to repeat any of the details.

Here in Dickinson, this is almost like a school for me, it literally is like a classroom.  I have never seen things so clearly in my life, I don’t know if it is like this for anyone else here.  I want to give one example.

I have met three local men in Dickinson, and have gotten to know them pretty well.  These particular three men, their fathers were competent, hard working, and successful.  These three men did not go without very much when they were children, they were helped by their family all throughout their lives, even in buying a home or property, and later through inheriting money, a home, or property.

None of these three men have been successful in their lives, not in a career, not financially, and especially not in relationships.  In each of these three men, I have seen remarkable self-centeredness and selfishness, which appears to have been with them throughout their lives.  This self-centerdness and selfishness seems to have been what has gotten in the way of their career, their financial success, and especially their relationships.

The reason why I brought up the fact that their fathers were competent, hardworking, and successful, and the fact that they have never had to go without very much throughout their lives, I think that this is the cause of their self-centerdness and selfishness.  In a way, they have never had to go without, been without help, been desperate for help, had to look for help, been totally on their own.  They have always received things, and received help.  Somehow, this has made them not have any sympathy for others, compassion for others, desire to help others, or desire to understand others.  In other words, they don’t care about others.

This not caring about others, has been something that has made them unsuccessful in relationships.  For as long as they have not seen their own self-centeredness and selfishness, they have had failed work, social, and romantic relationships.  It is like this, they try to get a job, start a job, start a relationship, or maintain a relationship, and it fails because they alienate people when it appears that they don’t care about people, but only themselves.  Because this attitude has been so prevalent in their lives, I think that they were supposed to learn something from this, probably to recognize selfishness in themselves and to overcome it, but this hasn’t happened yet.

I don’t know how you would change something like this within yourself, not caring about others.  I suppose the first step would be to see this in yourself, to identify this in yourself.  The second step would be the desire, wish, and intention to change this in yourself, to want to start caring about people.  The third step would be to actually begin caring about people, and to begin trying to help people.

These three men, life has given them opportunity after opportunity to recognize in themselves that they do not care about other people, that they should want to and try to help other people, and the opportunity to help other people.  And for as many times as they do things to not care about other people, life will give them a result to reflect on, an opportunity for self evaluation, and an opportunity to try once more.

For the cynical people who are thinking why should I help anyone, why should I care about anyone, I began this blog post with the title “If There Is Any Reason For Our Lives, It Is Probably For Learning”.  You can go through life not helping people, not caring about people, and doing whatever you want.  At the very end of your life, knowing that you will certainly die soon, and there is no more time left for you, you might understand then that there are no more women, drugs, money, cars, boats, motorcycles, homes for you, you are leaving all of this behind, these things do not matter any more.

At the time of your death, once you realize that you are leaving all of this behind, do you think that you will wish that you cheated one more person, took advantage of one more person, stole from one more person, hurt one more person, or do you think that you will regret some of the bad things that you did to harm people?  Looking back on your life, once you know that your life is over, you will probably wish that you had done some things differently, regretting mean, unkind, hurtful things that you did to people.

For some people, it might not be until they know that they will die soon, and understand that they will soon leave everything behind, that money and other worldly things will no longer matter to them and seem unimportant.  For some people, they can see now that it is important how they treat other people, for what will seem important at the end of their life and what they would regret most at the end of their life is the harm that they caused other people.

Whether a person has the mental capacity at the end of their life to understand what they have done, or the time to reflect at the end of their life, or there is a personal life review after death, or there is judgment after death, I would not want to be one of the assholes who quadrupled the rent in Dickinson.

In my own life, what is it that I am supposed to learn?  I think that I see some of it.  Again, Dickinson is like school for me, it is literally like a classroom.  O.K., I am paying attention, what is it that I am supposed to learn?  This is what Dickinson has taught me so far:

  1. In the South, where I come from, there was segregation and discrimination against Blacks.  I was aware of this, but I didn’t truly know how this feels.  Imagine how it would feel if you did very well in school, you got a degree in engineering, you had worked as an engineer, estimator, superintendent, project manager, and operated your own business, but you couldn’t get a good job because you were Black?  After moving to Dickinson, I now know what it is like to be Black.
  2. I had never been to prison.  I was aware that there are no women in prison, you can’t go anywhere, and there are all kinds of rough, ignorant, primitive people that want to start fights all the time, but I didn’t truly know what this is like.  After moving to Dickinson, I now know what it is like to be in prison.
  3. I had never lived in a Third-World corrupt country like Somalia or Panama.  I was aware that they don’t have law, order, due process of law, and enforcement of regulations and laws, but I didn’t truly know what this is like.  After moving to Dickinson, and not being paid wages owed by my previous two employers, I now know what it is like to live in a Third-World corrupt country.
  4. I used to not have very much patience for people who were not good at their jobs.  I had anger towards people who were not good at their jobs if they caused me delays, frustration, or problems.  Since moving to Dickinson, and seeing and experiencing such a wide range of problems in people such as lack of education, lack of intelligence, drug addiction, mental illness, attention deficit disorder, developmental disabilities, in-breeding, recent immigrant, being from Dickinson, and God knows what else, I have learned to take a breath, calm down, realize that this is not going to go well or go quickly, wait patiently or leave quietly.  I have about a 75% success rate at being patient in the past 60 days.
  5. Since moving to Dickinson, I now know what it is like to have your social security card, birth certificate, credit card information, tools, equipment, money, and vehicle stolen, and to now have to keep putting a bicycle lock through my steering wheel and seat frame.

Hidden In Plain Sight, Dickinson, North Dakota

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I have mentioned a few times in previous blog posts, that there are underground nuclear fall out shelters in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota.  There are still metal signs on the building wall outside some of them.  Off the top of my head, there is one under the old Dickinson Press building, the Rock Bar, Greene Drug, and the old Sax Motor Company building.  I have been in the one under the old Dickinson Press building.

I believe that there was some government program or government incentive in North Dakota during the 1960s, for building owners to build to the standard that the government wanted and to include a fall out shelter below ground under their building.  I am old enough, that I remember, the government wanted citizens to be prepared to take cover if there was a nuclear attack on the United States.  These downtown fall out shelters would have helped shield people from a blast and radiation, better than being out on the street.  I suppose that they gave some people reassurance.

Several years ago, I had to go to work at a building for two weeks, I can’t say where.  When I got about two blocks away from the building and I could see it, I almost started giggling, I thought to myself, “Was the building owner expecting a 200 mph wind or something, this building is ridiculously over built.”  I thought that the building owner must have been a strange person or eccentric.

Most of my initial observations about the building were correct, but some of my interpretations and understanding was incorrect.  The building had a strange design, it appeared to be some person’s interpretation of 1960s minimalist modern.  The exterior had too much “strength” though, some of the architectural features were almost like buttresses.  (They were buttresses.)

The exterior walls were way too thick, they didn’t need to be that thick.  There was too much wasted space inside.  All of the office spaces were on the outer perimeter of the building, the inner core of the building was apparently for the two elevator shafts.  Again, too much wasted space, the inner core of the building was big enough for four elevator shafts.

As I was working in the building, I began to catch on.  I was always dressed very professionally for work in business casual attire, and I carried an attache case.  The women that worked on the first floor were very pleasant and respectful to me, which is odd and unusual in North Dakota.  The women on the other floors were polite, but very deliberate and observant.  I mostly stayed on my floor.

I made some observations about the building to some people that I worked with on my floor, and they made no reply, because I was stating the obvious.

About one year later, when I was talking to a life-long North Dakota resident who was a co-worker of mine, we were discussing ICBM launch facilities in North Dakota, their locations and so forth.  The subject of the building that I had worked at came up.  My co-worker said, “Do you know how far that building goes underground?  My God that building goes far underground.  I watched them dig the foundation for that building when I was kid, they had to build a road down into the foundation for the dump trucks, the excavators had the biggest longest booms they could have, and you could not even see the top of the excavators.”  I asked how deep are you talking about, and he said about sixty feet.  The building goes further underground, than it does above ground.

When I was making the observation, “Was the building owner expecting a 200 mph wind or something?”  The answer was yes, even more than a 200 mph wind.  The exterior of the building could withstand beyond hurricane force winds, or probably even a close passage of a tornado.  However, because all of the offices were on the outer perimeter of the building, what the exterior of the building was really doing, the office spaces included, was serving as a buffer to protect the inner core of the building that housed the elevator shafts.

The inner core of the building was much bigger than was needed to house just two elevator shafts, it was big enough for four elevator shafts.  Once I happened to learn that the foundation for the building was dug sixty feet deep, I knew that there were below ground levels of this building.  The two elevators that were accessible, did not go to below ground levels.

I looked this building up on the internet, and there is nothing very much written about this building.  The people in North Dakota just pass by this building every day, and think nothing of it, except for possibly thinking that it is ugly because it was built in the 1960s with a strange design.

I Was Wrong About ICBMs And UFOs In North Dakota

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Several days ago, I wrote a blog post titled “Paranormal Oil Fields Article For Steph Young”.  I was trying to provide some little-known information about paranormal phenomena in North Dakota, to discuss this phenomena, what it could be related to or linked with, and compare it to occurrences elsewhere.

Something that is not well known, not talked about, and almost completely forgotten, are the numerous close-encounter UFO sightings in New England, North Dakota in the 1970s.  What is also not well known, is that 25 miles north of New England, in Dickinson, North Dakota, was a large Air Force station on top of a butte called Radar Base Hill, that served as an operations center for not only radar tracking, but for ICBMs.

The people in Dickinson were told that Radar Base Hill was a weather radar station.  Not only was Radar Base Hill not a weather radar station, or just a radar tracking station as was later disclosed long after the station was de-commissioned, it was a regional operations center.  The amount of facilities on top of Radar Base Hill, was much more than would be needed by a radar tracking station.  There were barracks, shops, gymnasium, officers club, administrative buildings, and…facilities underground.

After Radar Base Hill was de-commissioned, the property and facilities, the entire site, were sold at public auction.  The buyer was a local man named Gene Fisher, who owned quarries and heavy equipment, who I believe worked on the construction of many ICBM launch facilities and Radar Base Hill.  One indication of this was, that once Gene Fisher bought Radar Base Hill at public auction, he then proceeded to remove incredibly large generators and other equipment from “deep underground”.  He then sold this equipment, and just this equipment alone he sold for more than what he paid for the entire site at the public auction in the first place.  Then, he sold the land and facilities for the same price as what he paid for the entire site at public auction.  He more than doubled his money because he knew what was underground, because he installed it there.

In addition to it not being known that Radar Base Hill in Dickinson was a regional operations center for the ICBM launch facilities, it was not known that there were ICBMs in this area around Dickinson.  I have met several local people that gave me a few of the locations of ICBM launch facilities in this area.

In the 1970s, not only were there numerous close-encounter sightings of UFOs in New England, North Dakota, the Air Force then came to New England and told all of the people to shut up about it, and set up a station in New England.  I have talked to two local people who remember there being an Air Force Station in New England, but I have not been able to find any public record of this, which is strange.

I was speculating in my blog post “Paranormal Oil Fields Article For Steph Young”, that the UFO encounters in New England might have been due to the ICBM launch facilities and regional operations center in this area.  It is almost common knowledge now, that in other countries and other states, UFOs have arrived at nuclear armed ICBM launch facilities, and caused launch sequences to initiate and operator control to be overridden.  But this never happened in North Dakota….wrong!

I was wrong, this has happened in North Dakota, I read about this yesterday.  From the Bismarck Tribune newspaper, there was an article written by Eloise Ogden published on June 17, 2017 titled “Former Minot crew commander tells of UFO cover-up in book”:

“Capt. David D. Schindele was a Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missile launch crew commander in the Minot Air Force Base missile field when he experienced a situation in which a flying object took down all 10 of the nuclear-tipped missiles he was responsible for, causing them to be unlaunchable. That was 50 years ago.

Air Force officials instructed Schindele never to speak about the incident and as far as he was concerned, it never happened. Schindele was at a launch control facility near Mohall when the incident occurred.

On Dec. 6, 1966, the front-page headline of the Minot Daily News on Dec. 6, 1966, read: “Minot Launch Control Center ‘Saucer’ Cited As One Indication of Outer Space Visitors.” The story told about UFO incidents in the Minot area.

“It Never Happened, Volume 1,” is the title of Schindele’s new book about the Air Force’s cover-up of the UFO (unidentified flying objects).

Schindele was stationed at Minot AFB from July 1965 to May 1968.

“During that time in Minot, many of us experienced unworldly incidents at Minuteman facilities but we were all individually instructed to keep silent. We never realized at the time that others among us were also experiencing incidents, but now the truth is becoming known,” Schindele told the Minot Daily News.

Schindele said a number of years ago he learned about a similar incident experienced by another missileer and that led him to writing his book.

“About 35 years after my Minot incident and learning about an identical incident experienced by another missileer (Capt. Robert Salas) connected to Malmstrom AFB in Montana, which was during the same general timeframe as my incident, I then contemplated coming forth with the ‘truth,’ ” Schindele said.”

I kept trying to find any written accounts of the UFO sightings that occurred in New England, North Dakota in order to try to gather more evidence that this was related to the ICBM launch facilities and operations center in this area, but instead I found an old UFO sighting report from 1956 in Dickinson, North Dakota.

From “The Fifth Horseman Of The Apocalypse, UFOS: A History, 1956: November-December”, by Loren E. Gross:

“17 November. Dickinson, North Dakota. (2:30 a.m.)

Two members of the local police department of Dickinson Investigated a
red light near some railroad tracks. Lawmen Jack Messmer and his partner
spotted the light at 2:30 a.m. When the men approached, the light vaulted
skyward out of reach. For the next two hours the light remained in view
in the night sky and put on a show. The light bobbed up and down, as well
as back and forth, changing color as it did so. The colors shifted from
green, to white, to red, and back to green. At 4:30 a.m. the lawmen lost
sight of the phenomenon.”

I kept looking through this document “The Fifth Horseman Of The Apocalypse, UFOs: A History, 1956: November-December” by Loren E. Gross, which is now a 91 page PDF document that has been uploaded to the internet.  Several UFO researchers from the 1950s gave Loren Gross their UFO research collections in order for him to compile the great deal of UFO sighting reports that occurred in 1956.  Even the author himself comments on the frequent and numerous UFO sightings that occurred in North Dakota and South Dakota.  Looking at the index at the end of the document, I saw that there was one report from New England, though due to a typographical error, the report was cut off:

“16 November.  New England, North Dakota.

If the Lemmon (South Dakota) phenomenon was just ball lightning, a very rare natural manifestation, it seems strange so many UFO sightings were made during this period.  From the town of New England came this account “William Hanson and his son, of Dovrc township, saw a brilliantly colored object with sparks trailing behind it at 6:00 p.m.   Young Hanson, a former paratrooper, said he first mistook the UFO as a jet plane.  They both described it as looking ‘something like a large chunk of
red and white hot iron.’ The thing disappeared In the south-west without falling, they said. The pair were certain the UFO was not a meteor, as it first went toward the earth, and then came up again.”

I encourage readers to go look up “The Fifth Horseman Of The Apocalypse, UFOs: A History, 1956: November-December” by Loren E. Gross, which is now a 91 page PDF document that has been uploaded to the internet, because the number of UFO sightings in North Dakota and South Dakota is astonishing.

Roers Road Failing In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I have written several blog posts where I stated that one of the reasons why I wanted to remain in Dickinson, is to see everybody get what is coming to them.  Local people took advantage of the out-of-state workers tremendously, gouging them on housing and quadrupling the rent in Dickinson.  Now that the oil boom is over, I wanted to see everybody who tried to get rich by taking advantage of other people, get what is coming to them.

In my mind, the epitome of the property owners and property developers who were trying to get rich by taking advantage of the out-of-state workers, was the Roers family.  In 2013, I remember a friend of mine, an electrician named Dwayne, telling me that he had worked on the construction of the Roers West Ridge Apartments.  He said that the rent for these apartments was $2,000 to $3,000 per month.  My friend Dwayne, he was sleeping in his Jeep Liberty at the Tiger Truck stop and at vacant lots around Dickinson for about six months, he didn’t make enough money to afford what they were charging for rent in Dickinson.

Back in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 uninformed people, ill-intentioned people, and liars, used to like to repeat the phrase, “Everybody is making $100,000 per year in the oil field.”  This was far from being true.  This false statement, was used as justification to take advantage of the people who came from out-of-state to work in Dickinson, and as justification to quadruple the rent.

The people who did make over $50,000 per year in Dickinson, about 95% of them did so by working 30 to 40 overtime hours per week, week after week.  I don’t know how many of you readers have done this, working 30 to 40 hours of overtime per week, for many weeks in a row, it is a big personal sacrifice and hardship.  You barely have time to eat before you have to go to sleep, but you still have to do grocery shopping, wash dishes, wash clothes, and pay bills.  Everything in your own personal life gets neglected.

I hate it, and I am angry about it, that property owners and property developers felt entitled and justified in trying to fleece working people who were trying to get ahead financially by making the personal sacrifice of working 30 to 40 hours of overtime every week.

To me, the following story from the Dickinson Press Newspaper, is like the hand of God coming down and shoving the Roers family faces in shit:

Dickinson works on fixing problems with West Ridge Drive, by Grady McGregor, October 4, 2017

“The nearly mile-long road on Dickinson’s northwest side connects 30th Avenue West with about a dozen businesses including Menards, Wells Fargo and Buffalo Wild Wings. The road was completed in 2013 as part of Roers Development’s West Ridge Development, but city officials have noticed problems with the road that may call for costly repairs, if not complete reconstruction, of the concrete road.

City Engineer Craig Kubas said the city was first made aware of problems with the road almost immediately after it was constructed when they noticed water valves along the road were settling deeper into the ground than initially expected.

City residents complained in 2015 that manhole covers were rising out of the road, which could be potentially hazardous to users and present problems to snowplows in the winter….

One option is to rebuild the entire road at a cost of over $4 million. Another option is to hire a company to inject foam into voids beneath the road to stabilize them, Kubas said. The third option is to do nothing and patch problem areas as they pop up, but this option would be inefficient and could cause problems in winter months, Kubas said.”

If you do not believe me that the $2,000 to $3,000 per month rent for the West Ridge Apartments was gouging back in 2013, why are these rents $800 per month now?

Terrible Amount Of Property Theft In Dickinson, North Dakota

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All of the older, long-time local residents in Dickinson, North Dakota have told me that there used to be very little theft in Dickinson.  And if there was a theft, the Police or the Sheriff’s Department would not let up no matter how long it took to find the perpetrator.

Everyone in Dickinson used to leave their house doors unlocked, their garage doors open, their car doors unlocked, and their car keys in the ignition.  They had better not do that now.

Dickinson now has the worst amount of property theft, of anywhere I have ever lived.  And I am sick of it.  This is terrible, Dickinson only has about 20,000 residents now.  Please, go read the Dickinson Press Newspaper “Police Blotter”.

Here are the reasons why, I think, that Dickinson has so many property thefts now, and there is one common factor:

  1. There are young people in Dickinson, ages 13 to 35, who have begun using marijuana, meth, heroine, oxycontin, and hydrocodone, who are stealing property and money in order to buy drugs.  (Yes, I included marijuana, because how else is a 13 year old going to get money to buy marijuana.)  The perpetrator’s mother, father, sisters, brothers, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, whoever they live with, are aware that this person in their home is going out at night, and returning with money and property, or they always have money and no job, and the relatives are saying nothing.
  2. Local people and out-of-state people who have lost their jobs, or don’t want to work, have begun stealing property and money, and these perpetrator’s mother, father, sisters, brothers, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, whoever they live with, are aware that this person in their home is going out at night, and returning with money and property, or they always have money and no job, and the relatives are saying nothing.
  3. There are local people who are buying, storing, housing, or transporting this stolen property, and the perpetrators’ neighbors, mother, father, sisters, brothers, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, whoever they live with, are aware that this person has a tremendous amount of property, or they always have money and no job, and the neighbors and the relatives are saying nothing.

I honestly and truly believe that there are so many property thefts in Dickinson now, not because there are more criminals, but because neighbors, family, and relatives are allowing it, by not stopping or turning in these criminals.

Please, do not think that these thieves’ mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and neighbors are innocent bystanders, blameless, guiltless, innocent, and long suffering. They are not innocent, they are the reason why there are so many property thefts in Dickinson now!

If you read the Dickinson Press Police Blotter, the last eight of them, you will see again and again that there are property thefts and crime on Mike Street, Meadows Drive, and 8th Street SW.  What the fuck is wrong with you people on these streets?  Particularly the 1200 block of Mike Street, and the 700 block of 8th Street SW.  The Police should just stay on Mike Street and 8th Street SW.

What I mean by “What the fuck is wrong with you people on these streets?” is, you obviously have a criminal in your neighborhood, there are so many and so frequent property thefts, this thief is taking all of this property back to where they live in your neighborhood, their neighbors, family, and relatives aren’t saying anything, and you other residents on these streets just allow this to continue.

Here is what you can do, and what we started to do in my neighborhood here in Dickinson.  When I saw my neighbors outside their house, I would go and talk to them, sometimes I ended up talking to them for twenty minutes.  I would tell them to be careful to shut their garage, lock their car doors, and don’t leave anything in their car, because some of my neighbors had things stolen.

Some of the neighbors would say that they found someone in their garage recently, and I would pass this along.  Some of my neighbors and I, we all saw the same person that we did not know, who did not live here, hanging around the parking lot with a back pack on.  Several neighbors had things stolen out of their car like a tool bag or a phone charger.  Several of my neighbors have said, “Look, if we all start watching out for each other’s stuff, maybe we can catch or stop these people.”

We asked the Police to please get the athletic shoes down from the overhead utility lines that were advertisement for drug dealers in the neighborhood, and we turned in the drug dealers in the neighborhood.

The old people, middle-aged people, young people, Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, local people, and out-of-state people all wanted the crime to stop in our neighborhood, and mostly all it took was people to start talking to each other.

Some Of The Flaws With Companies In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I won’t be able to cover everything that is wrong with companies in Dickinson, North Dakota, but I want to point out some of the things that are wrong.  I hope that this will give company owners and managers in Dickinson some things to consider.  I hope that this will give people who are planning on moving to Dickinson some things to watch out for and be aware of.

The company that I recently worked for in Dickinson, starts most new-hires out as laborers, whether they are equipment operators or not.  They want to see if the new-hire can do physical work, if they can follow instructions, if they can get along with others, if they have sound judgment, if they are normal, and….so that they have enough laborers in order to complete the work.  This is not a bad idea, it works O.K., except some experienced equipment operators would quit before long, after getting tired of being a laborer.

When the opportunity arises at this company, a laborer can sometimes get in a piece of equipment and run it, in order to demonstrate his operating ability, and increase his chances of getting to be an operator in the future.  This is O.K. too.

When the need arises for a foreman at this company, they pick one of the equipment operators to be a foreman.  They do this because they believe that the equipment operator has enough knowledge and job experience to know what is going on, what needs to be done, and how to complete the work.  This is a problem if the equipment operator who is chosen to be a foreman is a bad person and unfit to be a manager.

Stop and think about this, why would you think that a person with no education, no management training, no management experience, who is not a very good person, would be a good manager?  This happens all the time in Dickinson, and none of the company owners or company managers ever spot this as being one of the biggest flaws in their company.

I will try to point out and explain why promoting equipment operators to foremen, and foremen who used to be equipment operators to superintendent, can be a very bad idea that hurts both the company and the other employees.

A company owner, or a company manager, often seek to hire the most competent and skilled employees.  As far as the company owner or the company manager are concerned, the more qualified, experienced, and skilled an applicant is, the better, they would be an asset to the company, with potential to move up.

To an equipment operator who was promoted to foreman, or to a foreman who used to be an equipment operator who was promoted to superintendent, a competent, skilled, qualified, experienced new-hire is not an asset, it is a threat to them.

An equipment operator without any education, without any management training, without any management experience, looks at someone who is a better equipment operator than them, a more experienced equipment operator than them, a more qualified equipment operator than them, a physically stronger person than them, a more intelligent person than them, a faster learner than them, a more likable person than them, as a threat to them.

A person with training in management, a person with higher education, a person with more broad management experience, a highly intelligent person, or a good natured person, would recognize a skilled, experienced, qualified new-hire, as an employee with potential, someone who could help complete the work, take more responsibility, be in charge of portions of the work, a person to depend on, a good example for other workers.  A good manager would utilize a new-hire in the most effective way to get work done.  A good manager would just use a skilled, experienced, qualified, talented, intelligent worker as a tool or resource to get work done, not look at them as a threat.

Perhaps the biggest problem with companies in Dickinson, is that they promote a person to manager, who is unfit to be a manager.  Yes, a person who has been with the company for a while, who has performed many aspects of the work, does probably know how to complete the work.  But many of the workers in Dickinson who have been promoted to manager, do not like workers who are more experienced, more qualified, more knowledgeable, more intelligent, a faster learner, quicker, stronger, or more likable than them.  They see them as a threat.

A good manager would look at a talented employee, and think, “Good, finally, thank God, now we can get work done, now I don’t have to watch someone all the time, this will make less work for me.”  However, the workers that get promoted to manager in Dickinson think, “I have got to get rid of this person, I have got to make this person leave, I have got to try to find a way to make them leave, I have got to get other people to help me make them leave, …or they will take my job.”

At this company that I recently worked for in Dickinson, there was a young man who was much quicker than any of the other workers, he had much more energy than any of the other workers, he was more intelligent than any of the other workers, he remembered how to do things more than the other workers, he was always coming up with ways how to complete the work quicker, and he was an equipment operator.  I didn’t like him at first, until I worked with him some, and then I had to hand it to him, he was quicker, faster, better, more intelligent, and more knowledgeable in the work that we were doing.

He was not treated very well by the foreman.  The foreman appeared to resent him, and not want him around.  This young man told me that the foreman had done a few things to try to get rid of him.  This foreman’s life would have been so much easier, if he would have given this young man a written list of work projects in the morning, told him to take the people that he needed, that he was responsible for getting it done, and to go do it.  More work would have been completed, and probably completed better, with less work required from the foreman.  Instead, the foreman didn’t utilize this young man like he could have, and tried to make him not want to work at this company.

Warning To Mexicans About Speaking Spanish At Work

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I recently worked for a construction/oil field service company in Dickinson, North Dakota.  There were a group of new-hires that started at about the same time.  This company usually starts everyone out as a laborer, whether they are an equipment operator or not.  They want to see if all employees are capable of doing physical work, if they are normal, if they can follow instructions, and if they can get along with everyone, before they put them in an operator position or a position of more responsibility.

The make up of the laborers was approximately 30% White, 30% Native American, and 30% Hispanic.  Two of the new-hire Mexicans were above average in just about every way: they worked harder, they worked faster, they had more common sense, they had good judgement, they had a lot of work experience, and they were good equipment operators.  One of the new-hires, Jose, could have or should have been a foreman before long, except for one thing, he kept speaking Spanish, and he didn’t know how much this was hurting him.  I will try to explain very clearly why speaking Spanish at work is a very bad idea, and how it hurts Mexicans.

When I was riding in the crew truck with two Mexicans, they would begin conversing in Spanish about personal and family things, and this would continue on to include talking about workers, about work, and about work plans.  As far as the discussion about work and work plans, I needed to be able to understand what they were talking about so that I knew what was going on, and they knew what was going on, because work instructions from the foreman and the superintendent changed about every fifteen minutes.

For instance, if they were discussing going and picking up a trailer, I would need to know this to be able to tell them, “No, don’t try to get that trailer, the trailer jack on that trailer is broken, go to the other yard” or “You will have to turn around and get the ball hitch back, they took the ball hitch off this truck and put it on another truck.”  If they were talking about removing erosion control straw bails, I might need to know this to be able to say, “We don’t have a sledge hammer in this truck to break the stakes, we need to get one off of the other truck before we leave.”

But what hurt the Mexican new-hires even more was this.  The foreman of the equipment operators had met a young man who was about 28 years old, who had received trades school training on operating equipment such as dozers, backhoes, skid steers, and excavators.  He had work experience operating equipment, and his father was a life-long equipment operator.  The foreman of the equipment operators liked everything about this young man, and told him to apply with the company.  He started out with the other new-hires, working as a laborer for two weeks, but then the equipment operator foreman intervened, and began putting him on equipment, because this it what they had planned for him all along.

When this young man was riding in the crew truck with two Mexicans, they talked on and on in Spanish, and he did not understand what they were talking about, and when they turned and looked at him and started laughing.  He did not like this, and he was sick and tired of the Mexicans talking in Spanish like this.

I did not like it, the new-hire who has now moved up to the next level and will be a foreman eventually did not like it, the equipment operators do not like it, and the foremen do not like it.  Just about everyone on the job site who is not Mexican, does not like it when the Mexicans go on and on speaking in Spanish, so they are certainly not going to be promoted, because no one likes this when they can’t understand what they are talking about.

In order to be able to complete the work without mistakes, and without re-work required, everyone needs to pay attention, and clearly let everyone else know what is going on:  Do not dig there, there is a fiber optic cable there;  Do not drive on that land, the land owner has already complained;  No one drive on the embankment, it is too wet and you will rut it;  Do not park there today, the scraper has to remove most of the dirt there today.  There are all kinds of things that people need to know throughout the day, and this communication doesn’t happen when the Mexicans keep speaking Spanish.  This is one of the reasons why the Mexicans are not promoted to equipment operator, or foreman, because they keep reverting back to speaking Spanish, and not everyone can understand Spanish.