Tag Archives: Moving to Dickinson

Hope That The New Life Pentecostal Church Will Have A Buffet

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Now that the New Life Pentecostal Church in Dickinson, North Dakota has taken over the upstairs of the Elks Lodge building, I hope that they will have a buffet style restaurant.

I don’t see having a sit down restaurant with a menu and waitresses being very efficient or practical, especially because the Elks Lodge restaurant just went through a period of not making money.  However, I do believe that the Pentecostal women are good cooks, and that they would very much get into the spirit of things, with having a buffet.

I miss the Bonanza restaurant buffet in Dickinson very much after it closed in approximately 2014.  I hope that the New Life Pentecostal Church buffet would be very similar to the Bonanza buffet.

There are three main elements of the buffet, that I would like to have:  Salad Bar, Side Dishes, and Meat Dishes:

Salad Bar:  The salad bar should have lettuce, spinach leaves, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, pickles, olives, celery, onions, mushrooms, grated cheese, cottage cheese, potato salad, cold pasta, croutons, and several different salad dressings.

Side Dishes:  The side dishes should be mashed potatoes, steak fries, tater tots, macaroni & cheese, white rice, fried rice, pasta noodles, casseroles, baked beans, Lima beans, butter beans, grits, egg rolls, garlic toast, and bread rolls.

Meat Dishes:  The meat dishes should include Salisbury steak, chicken fried steak, meat balls, meat loaf, roast beef, beef with Chinese vegetables, beefaroni, lasagna, fried chicken, chicken & rice, sweat & sour chicken, chicken l’orange, chicken nuggets, ham, pork chops, and roast pork.

The women would run the kitchen and the buffet, the men would have to stay out of the kitchen and be greeters, hosts, cashiers, and clear off the tables.

I could see Pastor Simons greeting the customers, and going from table to table to chat with the customers as they were dining.

Every half hour, it would be time for Pastor Simons to take the stage, and perform one song.  Pastor Simons could give a brief introduction to the song, which would give him the chance to impart some message.  It might go something like this:

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for dining with us here tonight.  Though you could have eaten at the King Buffet, we like to think of our place here, as the “King of kings buffet”.

In this song, that I am about to sing to you, feel free to join in with me and our musicians on stage.

One man come in the name of love
One man come and go
One man come he to justify
One man to overthrow.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love?
In the name of love
What more in the name of love?
One man caught on a barbed wire fence
One man he resist
One man washed up on an empty beach
One man betrayed with a kiss.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love?
In the name of love
What more in the name of love?
Here is what this might look like:

Economy in Dickinson, March 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note To Farmers In Dickinson About Getting Raped

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Dickinson A Good Place To Live?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christianity In Dickinson, North Dakota

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

German Catholics In North Dakota Part III

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In the South, during the 1700s and 1800s, there was slavery.  Wealthy people on farms and plantations owned black people, and forced them to work for free.

In order to be wealthy enough to own slaves, you were not a stupid person, you were likely educated.  I have wondered what kind of thought process occurred in an educated person’s mind, in order to reconcile, the fact that you owned other people.  Three general possibilities:  You believed that blacks were so inferior, that they did not have the same rights as whites;  You believed that according to the Bible, slavery had existed, and it was allowable;  You didn’t let the thought of moral right and wrong guide what you did.

I can see atheists deciding that they would not worry about moral right and wrong, and participate in slavery because it would not be in conflict with their religious beliefs, they have none.  But slavery was not engaged in by atheists alone.  The South was predominantly Christian Protestant.  I see that the root of the slavery problem was not that people in the South did not worry about moral right and wrong, it was that their sense and understanding of moral right and wrong was warped.

The Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, De-Segregation, Integration of Public Schools, the Civil Rights Movement, all happened in order to bring equal and fair treatment to people in the South.  Me, I have to admit, that one of the underlying causes of the resistance to change was that the Christian Protestant beliefs in the South did not squash the prejudice and hate in people’s minds, like it should have.  In other words, people in the South were predominantly Christian Protestant, but they were filled with hate, and they should not have been if they were in fact followers and believers in Christianity.

Now, I want to point out a similar problem that the German Catholics have had.  Over in Germany in the 1930s, the people were predominantly Catholic.  In Germany, there became an out of control hatred of the Jews.  The Jews were forced by law, to wear the Star of David on their clothes.  They were mistreated, ridiculed, and abused in public.  The Jews were forced to relocate to crowded ghettos, their homes, property, and land were taken.  The Jews were later relocated to work camps and concentration camps, and forced to work as slaves.  Many Jews were worked to death, starved to death, or were killed in the gas chambers.  The Catholics in Germany, if they were truly following and believing in Christianity, they would not have allowed this to happen.

At the end of World War II, there were two entities that were authorized to create identification papers and travel documents for refugees in Europe:  the Red Cross, and the Catholic Church.  It is now known historical record and fact, that the Catholic Church officials created many false identification papers for Nazis that were known to be war criminals being sought by allied forces for prosecution for atrocities against the Jews.  The Catholic Church provided false identification, false documents, aid, and assistance to known war criminals, to allow them to escape to other parts of Europe and South America.

It was not that Germany was full of atheists, it was full of Catholics.  How could you be a Catholic, and think that rounding up millions of Jews, taking their property, and killing them, was the Christian thing to do?  The Catholic Church itself even helped the war criminals escape prosecution, and escape from Germany.

What the Christian Protestants did in the South with slavery was wrong.  What the Christian Catholics did in Germany was wrong.

The De-Segregation, forced Integration of Schools, and Civil Rights Movements that occurred in the South in the 1960s and 1970s were recent actions that occurred to battle continued prejudice, discrimination, and hatred in the South, that had not been successfully eliminated by Protestant religions.  The Protestant religions in the South are partly to blame for allowing and enabling many Christians to live with hateful ideas and hateful practices.

Right here in Dickinson, the Catholic Church is greatly to blame for allowing and enabling these Catholics here in Dickinson to mistreat and take advantage of out-of-state workers.  The Catholic Church, which is one of the wealthiest institutions in the World, had the resources, to help the many thousands of people who came to North Dakota and lived in filth and squalor.

Again, go and look at the Real Estate Multiple Listing Guide in Dickinson, and look at all the happy smiling faces of the realtors.  They have no remorse for taking advantage of the out-of-state workers.  People traveling here to Dickinson, with hopes of finding a good job, and providing for their families back home, only to find that one-bedroom apartments were $1,500 per month, homes that had once been $700 per month, were now $4,000 per month.  Many workers slept in their cars at Wal-Mart, many workers slept in their cars at Tiger Truck Stop, many workers slept in tents at Patterson Lake, or in people’s back yards.  Real estate agents and property developers did not want any man-camps, they wanted to keep prices high!, they wanted to get rich!  They, and the Catholic Church did not want any homeless shelter, these homeless people don’t matter.  The Catholics in Dickinson greatly mistreated the out-of-state workers.  It was not that the Catholic Church or the Catholics did not have the resources, means, and ability to help, it was that the Catholics in Dickinson have hatred towards others.

German Catholics In North Dakota Part II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

German Catholics In North Dakota, Part I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Facebook in Dickinson, North Dakota

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I hesitated to write this blog post, I didn’t want to give this secret away.  On Facebook, I have found so much information about people in Dickinson in a short time, that would have otherwise taken me about fifteen years of living in Dickinson to find out.  I have written in about 40% of my blog posts, that there had been a shortage of women in Dickinson.  During the first year that I lived in Dickinson, I thought that there was some genetic reason why nobody here had attractive daughters.  Later I found out that the attractive women were just hiding.  I found out that if you went to the grocery store before 5:00 p.m., before the oil field workers got off work, you would see some attractive women shopping.

In Dickinson, I wasted probably two years of my life trying to look for women to date on internet dating sites.  I found out, that if a nice looking woman has to advertise on an internet dating site to get asked out, she is probably driving men away in person.  This is an understatement.

One day in Dickinson, I met an attractive young waitress, and I later looked her up on Facebook.  On Facebook, she had all of her “friends” listed.  I could not help looking at some of her attractive “friends” profiles on Facebook.   I was just viewing Facebook profiles, when I started to realize, this is telling me a lot.  It was like someone was taking the time to tell me who everybody was in Dickinson.  I could see who everyone’s friends, family members, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives were, where they worked, where they went to school.  A tremendous amount of information.

I still to this day don’t know where all of these good looking women in Dickinson hide most of the time, but I know a lot more about their behavior.  They like to list other good looking women as “friends”, they do not like to show ugly “friends”.  Good looking women like to go places.  It seems like for them, the point in going to some of the places they go, is to take pictures of them being there.  It appears that the young women in Dickinson most often date people that they went to high school with, or people that they work with.

I suppose if a guy wanted to, he could look on Facebook, pick any young woman he wanted to date, look at her pictures, read where she works, read what her interests are, and then go see her at her job at Ace Hardware.  “Yes, I’m here to buy some sealant for my turtle’s aquarium.”.   “Oh wow!  You have a turtle too?”.  “Yes, I got him after my bar mitzvah.”. “Oh wow!  You’re Jewish too, so am I.”

Anyway, as I mentioned in a recent post, I have more than enough young women around me now that 80% of the oil field workers have left the state, and I don’t want any more.  I look at some young women’s profiles on Facebook in order to see how bad an idea it would be for me to date them.

I don’t want to talk about looking at women on Facebook any more right now, in order to talk about some other important things.  I have written about the Dickinson Mafia in about eight of my blog posts.  They are a group of men who have had a great deal of control over what goes on in Dickinson, for many years.  They are not all bad, they have accomplished some good things, but they had a hand in keeping wages low in Dickinson up until this most recent oil boom.  Just as the pretty women on Facebook like to show other pretty women as “friends”, the Dickinson Mafia like to show other connected people, and their minions as “friends”.

Just as I met one pretty girl, and then found her “friends” on Facebook, I looked at the Dickinson Mafia “friends”.  It’s funny, none of the Dickinson Mafia friends have hard labor jobs, or even difficult jobs.  Most of the Dickinson Mafia friends have gone to college, which is not typical for Dickinson.  Though their male offspring sometimes look weak and not sharp, they still have good looking wives.  I’m not too interested in criticizing the Dickinson Mafia right now, I am trying to point out that they look after their own.

If I hadn’t known before, I know now, that I will never get very far in Dickinson.  I am not from here, I didn’t go to school here, I didn’t marry the right person’s daughter, and I didn’t curry favor with the Dickinson Mafia.  Like I started out saying at the beginning of this post, Facebook showed me what it might have taken fifteen years of living in Dickinson to find out: who is who, who knows who, who is related to who, and that’s how that works.

Before some readers go and get depressed, and other readers gloat that everything is as it should be in Dickinson, I want to point out that Dickinson is changing.  There is a likelihood that those who mistreated and took advantage of other people during the past several years will reap what they have sewn, especially the landlords, property managers, and property investors.  Keep me posted on Facebook when you go bankrupt.

That other thing about not being successful if the Dickinson Mafia don’t want you to be, if Dickinson is prohibitive to people making money, there won’t be many people staying in Dickinson. The Dickinson Mafia could end up owning a bunch of failed businesses and property that is worth nothing if too many people move away.

 

 

 

 

The Boom Went Away, And Women Changed in Dickinson

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I have written nearly sixty posts now, and in about 40% of those posts I mentioned the shortage of women in Dickinson.  I have devoted about six posts to describing the shortage of women in Dickinson.  I wrote about not ever looking at internet dating sites until I came to Dickinson, the need for prostitution in Dickinson, women in Dickinson not wanting to be bothered by oil field workers, you can go back and read those posts.

Things have changed now, they have definitely changed.  I waited about one month to write this post, to make sure that I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.  Many women are starting to be nice to me now.  I have lived in Dickinson for over three years now, and in the past, women were never nice or friendly toward me.  I am the same person I was three years ago, only older, what has changed?

So many oil field workers have moved away, that there is probably an equal number of men and women in Dickinson now.  So many young men oil field workers have moved away, that there are more young single women, than there are single men in Dickinson.  Right now, I have, let me count, about seven women under the age of 30, who are acting like they would like for me to ask them out.  They come and sit beside me, come and hang around me, want to talk to me, this is completely different.

I think that the main reason why these young women are interested in me now is, first: I appear to have a job and I am able to remain in Dickinson; second, I have been here for several years and I don’t have a bad reputation, I have not taken advantage of women or been abusive; third, I am kind of mild mannered, polite, and clean.  These qualities weren’t good enough to attract women in the past in Dickinson, but they are good enough now.

I guess these young women are scared, and they want to survive.  They don’t want to be alone, they don’t think that they can make it on their own.  I don’t think that these young women do a lot of reading, I don’t think that they pay attention to economic forecasts.  I think that something in Dickinson has really alarmed them, and alerted them that things are bad.  The only thing that I can think of that would have been noticeable to them, would be the disappearance of oil field workers.  Apparently this scared them so much, that they now look to me as someone who can possibly help them.

The truth is, I am worried too.  I don’t know what I am going to do.  I don’t know what is going to happen to me.  Rather than thinking this is my big chance to have sex with all of these young women, I am not in the mood.  I only feel like talking to them enough to figure out what is going on with them, to see if there is anything I can say or do to help.  The outlook is so bad in Dickinson now, I don’t know what any of us can do.

 

 

 

The Oil Boom is Over, How Did the Dickinson Mafia Fare?

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In Dickinson, North Dakota, there is a group of men who own businesses, own properties, are on board of directors, are members of development associations, and are involved in city government, who control much of what goes on in Dickinson.  Though they tell themselves, and each other, that what they decide is for the good of Dickinson, it happens to coincide with what benefits them personally.

In this blog, I have not yet listed the names of the members of the Dickinson Mafia, because I want to be able to write the truth about Dickinson without interference, but it is fairly well known in Dickinson who the members are.  The members of the Dickinson Mafia have each lived in Dickinson for more than twenty years, their individual deeds are well known, and their influence has been seen again and again.

In a recent previous post to this blog, I wrote that prior to 2008, the wages in Dickinson had been very low, this was intentional, this was the work of the Dickinson Mafia.  The purpose of the low wages in Dickinson, was to control the people.  The wages were so low, that the workers could not save any money, they could not get ahead, they were paycheck-to-paycheck people.  The workers could not save enough money to move away from Dickinson.  The workers could not afford to be without a job even for a short time, so if the wages were low at their job, if they were not paid for all of their time, if they were treated badly, they had to stay in that job even if they wanted to quit.  Also, if a worker did quit, he would be “black balled” by the Dickinson Mafia, so he could not get another job.  The workers knew that if they quit a job, the Dickinson Mafia would prevent them from getting another job, so they were scared.  This is what the Dickinson Mafia wanted, keeping most of the people in Dickinson like slaves, unable to get away, unable to get ahead, unable to speak out.

If you are a new resident of Dickinson, and you become acquainted with an older, long time resident of Dickinson, if you ask them in private about the things that I have written in this post, there are several possible reactions that you could get.  They might get very angry about you asking anything about the Dickinson Mafia because they are still afraid.  They might be both angry and embarrassed, they might still feel humiliated about what was done to them.  They might laugh, “Ha ha ha ha, oohh, ha ha ha….” and walk away, thinking it is better to not talk about it.  The only type of long time resident in Dickinson that would talk to you about it, is someone whose anger and stubbornness outweighs their fear.

I did not intend to write such a lengthy introduction to the Dickinson Mafia in this post, this information is given in two previous posts.  Also, I wrote in a previous post that the way the Dickinson Mafia guided the property development in Dickinson, they actually did a good job.  In this previous post, I described that Williston, Watford City, and Bismarck each were made a mess by the wrong type of development in the wrong area, it is hard to drive around town in those three cities.  In contrast, it is still very easy to drive around Dickinson even though there is a great deal of new development.

So how did the Dickinson Mafia fare, now that the Oil Boom is over?  Four of them did very well.  These four that did very well, their families were from Dickinson, and these four sons continued to run their family businesses in a conservative manner, and these businesses did very, very well.  They did begin paying higher wages to their workers, once they saw that they were losing essential workers to the oil field.  These four sons of Dickinson families did financially back at least four new businesses in Dickinson that were very much needed.  So I will admit, that in addition to exercising some beneficial control of development in Dickinson, the Dickinson Mafia did bring at least four greatly needed businesses to Dickinson.

One of the Dickinson Mafia, did not really do so well, in my opinion.  In both his personal, and business life, he saw something that looked attractive, got involved, and controversy followed.  He has had some problems, and it looks to me like he will continue to have problems.  But, he was not from Dickinson.

I would like to point out, that now that the Oil Boom is over, I can not think of any out-of-town person, or out-of-town business that has clearly emerged as a winner.  To date, I have never, never, met an oil field worker that was, or is financially well off.  I can not think of one out-of-town business that is here in Dickinson now, that is doing well.

The out-of-town oil companies, they may have made enough money to be able to afford to shut down operations now, and still have made money overall.  The out-of-town oil field service companies, it will really be close if they made any money now that they have shut down.  The out-of-town real estate developers and property investors, they are probably going to go bankrupt in the next couple of years.

The Dickinson Mafia could have been real estate developers and property investors between 2008 to 2014, probably more easily than anyone else, but they didn’t.  Why didn’t they?  Because they are from here and their families are from here, their families have been successful here for the past fifty years.  The Dickinson Mafia don’t lose money, they make money, again and again over a long period of time, they are not nouveau riche.  The Dickinson Mafia were happy to see out-of-state developers and property investors come here and buy land.  The real estate prices went up and up.  For that matter, the Dickinson Mafia helped the real estate prices go up and up, the Dickinson Mafia made sure that man-camps and temporary housing were not permitted in Stark County, which created a housing shortage.

Out-of-state real estate developers, property investors, and oil field service companies have built commercial buildings, warehouses, houses, and apartment buildings all over Dickinson.  In about one to two years, all of these newly constructed buildings will be selling for about sixty percent of what they cost to build.  At that time, that is when the Dickinson Mafia will buy property.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Over, Dickinson, North Dakota

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It’s Over.  The Oil Boom is Over in North Dakota.  Just about everyone living and working in Western North Dakota can see that it is over, and they acknowledge that it is over.

My recollection is that the price of oil started to decrease in December of 2014, and that the price of oil continued to decrease each month after that.  In the summer of 2015 in Dickinson, though the price of oil had fallen, there was still quite a bit of work going on.  There were a couple of large road improvement projects on State Avenue, the new Public Safety Building was being completed, Trinity High School was being worked on, there were several large commercial developments that were having site work done, several large apartment communities and one hotel were nearing completion.  There were still a lot of workers in Dickinson, and Dickinson was busy, just not as busy as it had been in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014.

I can remember in the summer of 2015, there was discussion of the number of operating drill rigs, continuing to decrease.  Many oil field workers were losing their jobs that were related to drilling and fracturing, but oil field workers that were doing service, repair, installation, and oil hauling were not losing as many jobs.  In the summer of 2015, and fall of 2015, it seemed like if the price of oil increased, everybody that was currently employed would keep their job, that more oil drill rigs would become operational and many people that had lost their job, would get their job back.

In the winter of 2015, the price of oil continued to drop.  The number of drill rigs operating continued to decrease.  Outside of Dickinson, drill rigs were positioned close together in tight rows and columns, for long term storage, not easy access for moving.  In Dickinson, Baker Hughes parked all of their trucks and equipment nose to bumper, side by side, in one great big mass, so you couldn’t get anything out, they were done.  Occidental took their sign off the entrance to their building, they no longer have a receptionist, and no one will come to the door.  In order to not have to talk to people, some drilling companies have locked the entrance gates to their property during the day.  I know of one oil field service company, where the manager parks his vehicle inside the building, so that nobody knows he is there and stops by to ask for a job.

Some of the real estate investors are trying to sell their properties, but it is too late, they waited too long.  They were waiting to see if things were going to turn-around, but it is apparent now that they aren’t.  I thought that by the summer of 2016, the price of oil would have gone back up.  I thought that by the summer of 2016, the people that were here in Dickinson would all have jobs, and that some of the people that left Dickinson would come back because there would be quite a few job openings by then.  That doesn’t look like that will happen now.

It looks like the price of oil will continue to drop.  It looks like Continental, Marathon, Whiting, Conoco Philips, Tesoro, Hess, Haliburton, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger, Nabors, Patterson, H&P, all the small oil field service companies, all the man-camps, all the apartment communities, all the hotels, all the real estate developers/investors, all the business owners, all the restaurant owners, know that the boom is gone, that it is not coming back, and that there is not going to be much new oil production work in the foreseeable future.

 

 

 

 

School Assignment, Dickinson, North Dakota

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Hello, and thank you for reading my blog.  The purpose of this blog is to tell people from out-of-state, what Dickinson, North Dakota is like.  Additionally, I hope that people from Dickinson read this blog.  The people here in Dickinson should be ashamed of how badly they treated everyone during the oil boom.  The people here in Dickinson were hostile, unfriendly, uncooperative, and they took advantage of people.

I want people to know the truth about Dickinson.  I don’t want people to get misinformation about Dickinson from the Chamber of Commerce, the City of Dickinson, or Dickinson State University.  Because I have written approximately forty-five blog posts about Dickinson, this site usually comes up on the first page of search engine results for “living in Dickinson”, “working in Dickinson”, “moving to Dickinson”, “relocating to Dickinson”, “women in Dickinson”, “corruption in Dickinson”, “nightlife in Dickinson”, and “the Dickinson mafia”.

Even though this site comes up on the first page of search engine results, there should be more views every day, from school kids doing their homework assignments for instance.  There should be more school kids looking at this site, but that doesn’t surprise me too much, North Dakota ranks first in some categories of illiteracy.

I want to write this blog for the school kids in Dickinson, to give them some useful information for their school assignments and reports on Dickinson, and to give them some useful life information.

The ratio of men to women in Dickinson is probably about 3:1, which is not normal.  Because there are way more men in Dickinson than women, there is a shortage of women for men to date, and marry in Dickinson.  There should be a strip bar, where men can go and talk to women and see them naked, but the City of Dickinson will not allow that.  There should be prostitution in Dickinson to provide women for men to date, but the City of Dickinson will not allow that.  Thank God there aren’t any rapes!  Because there is a shortage of women in Dickinson, most of the women in Dickinson do not try to stay in-shape, dress nicely, look nice, or be pleasant.  Most of the women in Dickinson are overweight and unfriendly.

There is not a lot to do in Dickinson.  It is cold from about the beginning of October through the end of April, that’s seven months.  It would be nice to go out to bars at night to have some drinks, but the City of Dickinson has instructed its police officers to be very aggressive in arresting people for Driving Under the Influence.  In fact, the Dickinson police arrest people and take them to jail, even before giving them a breathalyzer test, if they are under the legal limit at the police station where the breathalyzer test is given, they are still under arrest, are processed into jail, later post bail, and pay $3,000 up-front to an attorney.  Don’t let mom and dad go out to bars in Dickinson, they might get a DUI, lose their job, and then you’ll be out on the street!

Going out to restaurants in Dickinson is not that great either, the service is usually very bad.  The servers in Dickinson restaurants have been led to believe that all of the oilfield workers in Dickinson make over $100,000 per year, that’s what the television news says.  The servers have had the expectation that every oil field worker would spend $100 every meal and leave them a $20 tip.  The servers are angry that they aren’t making $300 per day at Applebees, Perkins, Country Kitchen, and Players Club.

There are not a lot of restaurants in Dickinson.  Prior to 2008, people in Dickinson did not go out to eat because they did not have much money, they were paid very low wages.  The local companies in Dickinson paid very low wages in order to control their workers.  The workers could not get ahead, they lived paycheck-to-paycheck, they could not afford to lose their job, they had no savings, they were completely dependent on their employer, they had to keep their job even if they were mistreated.

Because wages were low in Dickinson prior to 2008, home rents were low.  A one-bedroom apartment was probably $300 per month, a three-bedroom house was probably $700 per month. Due to the oil boom, by 2011, the rent for a one-bedroom apartment went up to $1,500 per month, a three-bedroom house went up to $3,500 per month.  This huge cost increase in housing not only hurt the oil field workers, it hurt the local people too.  This is why some people say that people in Dickinson were very greedy and took advantage of people.

That’s enough for now, your brains are probably jumping like a toad!  Please, please feel free to write comments and ask me questions.  I’ll go ahead with what will probably be a FAQ, Frequently Asked Question:

Question:  You seem to hate Dickinson, why don’t you just leave?

Answer:  I stay here because currently I can make more money here than elsewhere.  I have a home in a different state that I would like to go back to, but unemployment is high in that state.  While I am here, I would like to get the truth out about Dickinson, so that people from out-of-state will know what it is like, and maybe not come at this time.  I hope that I can change some things in Dickinson by exposing them.

 

 

Dickinson mayor Dennis Johnson resigning at the end of October 2015

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I have written about forty-two blog posts trying to explain what Dickinson, North Dakota is like.  Maybe some of the people who have read my blog don’t believe me.  Please, please read the Dickinson Press newspaper article dated October 6, 2015 titled, “Dickinson mayor Dennis Johnson resigning at the end of October.”

Dennis Johnson became mayor of Dickinson in year 2000.  According to my research, he was appointed to the Board of Directors of MDU in 2001.  MDU, Montana Dakota Utilities is a a large utility company that provides electric and gas service in North Dakota.  MDU also owns a construction company called Knife River Construction.

I would have thought back in 2001, that being mayor of Dickinson, and being on the board of directors of MDU, would probably lead to conflict of interest accusations and suspicion.

In about 2013, MDU began constructing a refinery in Dickinson, called the Dakota Prairie Refinery.  Again, I would have thought people in North Dakota would have thought that Dennis Johnson as mayor, was not able to be neutral, objective, and unbiased concerning MDU’s activities in Dickinson.

In approximately 2014, Knife River Construction was awarded a large road construction project on State Avenue in Dickinson.  There are several civil construction companies in Dickinson: Northern Improvement, Martin Construction, Tooz Construction, Baranko Brothers.  Did a citizen, a city council member, or a construction company owner finally say, or make the accusation that there was something corrupt going on?

In the Dickinson Press newspaper article, Dennis Johnson said that he was resigning as mayor of Dickinson because MDU stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and the New York Stock Exchange has a rule that you can’t be a government official and be on the board of directors of a company that does more than 2% of that government entity’s business.

My personal opinion is that Dennis Johnson’s increased status as mayor of Dickinson in 2000, probably increased his potential for being appointed to the board of directors of MDU in 2001.  Being on the board of directors of MDU probably helped Dennis Johnson be re-elected mayor several times.  Being mayor of Dickinson and being on the board of directors of MDU probably also helped Dennis Johnson’s company, TMI cabinets, a manufacturer of cabinetry for institutions and facilities like schools and hospitals.

There are some other things that I would like to say, that I was told by people who are in a position to know, that I believe are true, that Dennis Johnson is a large stockholder in MDU.  How can you be mayor of Dickinson, where MDU is building a refinery, and Knife River Construction is awarded a large road improvement project, and appear that you are not personally benefiting every time an employee of the City of Dickinson makes a decision favorable to MDU or Knife River Construction?  Did City of Dickinson employees, city council members, and business owners feel pressure to give MDU and Knife River construction preferential treatment in order to not get on the bad side of the mayor, or win favor with the mayor?

I encourage readers to go look up other news articles about the City of Dickinson, in particular articles related to the arrest of the Trinity High School principal and his coerced confession, and also news articles about illegal practices at Dickinson State University.  You will get a much better understanding of Dickinson.

Some Good Businesses In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I have written a lot of negative things about Dickinson, North Dakota:  Extremely high housing prices, shortage of women and lack of attractive women, prostitution not being allowed though it is needed, police being over zealous in DUI arrests so you can’t safely go out to bars, lack of entertainment and things to do, inhospitable and uncooperative local people.  Why would you want to live here?  You probably don’t want to live here, I don’t recommend it.  Right now, you do not want to move to Dickinson, North Dakota, because many people have just lost their jobs, and there are not many job openings.

If you are here in Dickinson, or if you come to Dickinson, there are a few businesses that I have good things to say about:

Don Pedros Restaurant:  I have eaten here about fifteen times in the last two years.  The servers have always been pleasant and quick.  The food has always been good.  Every time I have eaten here, I have had to get a to-go box because there has been so much food.  By far the best restaurant in Dickinson, because it is always quick, good, and more than you can eat.

Dan Porter Motors:  I have had a Toyota truck serviced several times, and had several repairs done.  They have always been quick, did a good job, and the prices were fair.

Charboneau Dodge:  I have had a Dodge truck serviced several times, and had several repairs done.  They were able to fit me in a couple of times so that I wasn’t without the use of this truck for long.  The prices were fair and the repairs were done right the first time.

Parkway Ford:  I have had a Ford truck serviced and repaired a couple of times.  The prices were slightly higher than what I thought they should have been, but I knew the specific repairs would take a long time, and they were done right.

Paradise Cleaners:  Huge improvement over the cleaners/laundry that had been in Dickinson in the past.  This cleaner is what you would find in a normal city.

Prairie Hills Mall Cinema:  The three movie theaters are in good condition, they are not over-full, many different movie times throughout the day.  You can watch a movie and forget you are in Dickinson.

Almost:

I can almost recommend the West River Community Center:  It has two indoor pools, one outdoor pool, four full-size basketball courts, three indoor racketball courts, two indoor tennis courts, indoor track, weight room, rock climbing wall, cardiovascular equipment.   The WRCC is open to everyone for a small daily fee.  However, Dickinson State University, which is not even a fourth-rate college, has its thugs/athletes come and use the WRCC.  Given that Dickinson State University has academic standards that are less than that of most community colleges, and their level of athletics is less than that of a large public high school, you can imagine the type of trash they get for their football and track programs.  Probably 80% of the people that came from the hood, that are now living in Dickinson, that can hook you up with some crack, came here because of an invitation from DSU.

How I Live In Dickinson, North Dakota

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The purpose of this blog is for me to tell people from out-of-state what it is like living in Dickinson, North Dakota.  Also, if people who live in Dickinson, North Dakota, should happen to read this blog, I want them to see what I see, and know what I have experienced.

I want to be able to tell the truth, so I don’t publish my name, and I try to be vague about the details of my life, so that no one can figure out it is me, and make me stop.

In particular, I did not want the owner of the house where I live, to find out that I write this blog.  I have lived in this house for two years now, and the owner of this house and me, we have had a lot of arguments.  The owner of the house where I live is in his fifties, he is from Dickinson, and he graduated from Dickinson State University.  If he became aware that I was writing so many negative things about Dickinson, he would probably say, “You need to get that shit off of there right now!”

I didn’t start out planning to write so many negative things about Dickinson, I just try to write truthfully, and I don’t want to censor myself on this blog. I have to mostly keep my mouth shut when I am out in Dickinson in order to not have problems.

There are some good points and some bad points about the person who owns the house where I live.  I have gotten a lot of information from him about the history of Dickinson, and things that have gone on in Dickinson.  The rent is not too high.  I have been allowed to keep construction equipment on the property without complaint.

I want to tell about some of the bad things, so that people can know what it is like when you have to live with somebody else due to the very high cost of housing in Dickinson.

Though the owner of the house has lived in Dickinson his whole life, he does not have any friends.  This is not uncommon in Dickinson, because the local people are not friendly to each other.  He has never been married, and he has not had a girlfriend for a long time.  This is also not uncommon in Dickinson, because there is a shortage of women.  Not having any friends or a girlfriend, has led to some quirky behavior, annoying behavior, gross behavior, which I am exposed to and have to deal with.

If you have ever seen the television show from the 1970s, “Sanford & Son”,  about an African-American junk dealer in Los Angeles living with his son Lamont, the inside of the house where I live is exactly the same, and I am kind of like Lamont.  The house has junk throughout the house, there has never been a girlfriend or a concerned friend that has helped the owner to see and understand that this had gotten out of hand.  I have had a couple of my friends come by the house, who I knew could take it, and they thought it was kind of funny.  But I know that I can never invite a woman over here, because they would freak out in a number of ways.  They would be scared of the carpet, the furniture, the bathroom, they would probably not want to have anything to do with me either after seeing where I live.

There would be several additional problems with me inviting a woman over to the house where I live.  The owner of the house is always here, he does not have anything to do or anywhere to go, which is a common problem for everybody in Dickinson.  He has not had a girlfriend for a long time, and there is a scarcity of women in Dickinson, so if I brought an attractive woman home, he would be unable to take his attention off her.  As it is, he stays in the living room all the time, even if he should fall asleep at 6 pm, 8 pm, 10 pm, midnight, he just stays in his Lazy Boy chair in the living room, as if he is guarding the living room, as if he is scared that he is going to miss out on something by going to his own bedroom.

When the owner of the house is in the living room, whether I am in the living room, or my bedroom, he talks to himself.  He sometimes mutters,” I did the best I could…bla, bla, bla”, or cries out, “I’m sorry!…bla, bla, bla”  Sometimes when I am in my bedroom, he goes on a long angry rant talking to himself out in the living room, when I am trying to fall asleep, and I feel like yelling, “Shut the fuck up, you fat fuck, shut up!”  I can only imagine what a fiasco it would be me having some woman in my bed, trying to have sex with her, and she would say, “Stop, stop, what the fuck is that?  Is that your room-mate out in the living room talking to himself?  This is too creepy, I’m getting out of here!”  Yup, can’t bring any women over to my house.

Comments on Dickinson, North Dakota, October 2015

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Hello everyone.  Thank you for reading my blog.  I have not added any posts to this blog in August or September because I was busy.  In June I went back to the state where my home is, to pick up a trailer full of equipment, so that I could come back to Dickinson and do some self-employment work, because my job in Dickinson was so slow.  I got some self-employment work in August, then my regular job was busy in September.  I have been lucky.

I look at the North Dakota Job Service website every week, and there are only about five oil-field/construction jobs posted each week for Dickinson.  There are some nursing and physician jobs posted, but there always are, because many healthcare professionals don’t want to live in Dickinson because housing is so expensive.  In October of 2014, there were about twelve  oil-field/construction jobs posted each week, this was just before the price of oil went down.

My estimate is, that about forty percent of the out-of-state workers have left Dickinson in the past eight months.  Traffic is much lighter, restaurants, grocery stores, and gas stations are much less busy.  I made a nasty comment in one of my last posts, saying that only the idiots were still coming to Dickinson, the people that don’t read or watch TV news.  I get the impression that even the idiots have quit coming to Dickinson now.

Supposedly, all of the companies have let go of their idiots and near-do-wells, and have retained the best employees.  This appears to be the case, there are not that many white-trash in Dickinson compared to last year.  People are friendlier in Dickinson now.  The ratio of men to women is still  probably 3:1.

Real estate people/property managers are trying their best to keep property/rent prices high.  I believe that property/rent prices will drop 20% in the next twelve months.

I advise people to not come to Dickinson at this time.