Tag Archives: relocating to Dickinson North Dakota

Why I Turned Down An $85,000 Job Recently In North Dakota

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On Thursday morning of this past week, a former supervisor telephoned me and said that he would like for me to come and work with him.  He said that he could offer to pay me $25 per hour, twelve hours per day, Monday through Friday.  I quickly did the math in my head, the first forty hours would be $1,000, and the next twenty hours of overtime would be about $740, so that’s $1,740 per week.  For easy math, at fifty weeks per year, that’s a little over $85,000 per year.

I told him that I already had a job, that this job was going O.K., but that I would consider it, because his job offer was more money than I was currently making.  My current job is not very difficult, this job offer that he was making would be a more difficult and more unpleasant job.  It would involve working in an area of North Dakota where there is nothing, driving a crane truck, and working on oil wells.

I told him that I was not ready to give up my apartment in Dickinson yet, that he would need to find me a place to stay Monday night through Thursday night, just a place to sleep.  He said O.K.

After I got off the phone with him, I realized that I had a cat now.  What was I going to do with this cat?  I decided that I would get a second litter box, a cat food dispenser, and a cat water dispenser.  The cat would probably be O.K. by himself in my apartment in Dickinson Monday through Friday, but he wouldn’t like being alone.  This cat was an abandoned cat that I took home from a job site, so he wasn’t having that bad of a life, living in a warm and dry apartment with food and water, though he was going to be alone.  Maybe I would leave the television on for him, and find someone to check on him.

Soon I was going to have to give my current employer not much more than one week notice that I was going to work someplace else due to being offered a lot more money.  I wasn’t looking forward to having to explain this to him, and causing him to have to find a replacement for me on short notice.  I was also uneasy and apprehensive about giving a notice of resignation when my current job was an O.K. job that I liked, that was not difficult.

At the end of the day on Thursday last week, my former supervisor called me back, he said that everything had been worked out, the company owner had agreed to pay me $25 per hour, pay for health insurance, provide a trailer for me to stay in, that we would be working seventy to eighty hours per week.  He said there was some pre-hire paperwork for me to complete, take my drug test, and did I still have my Class A Commercial Driver’s License?

I said that I never had a Commercial Driver’s License, though I had driven vehicles at work that required a Commercial Driver’s License, I didn’t have one.  He said, “Oh shit, that was the whole basis of getting hired right away at $25 per hour, that you had a Class A CDL.  What to do you want to do?  Oh fuck it, we won’t tell him right away, you’ve got the job anyway.”  I said, I don’t want anyone to have a fit when they find out that I don’t have a CDL, just tell him that I passed all of my written tests for a Class A CDL with the air brake endorsement, tanker endorsement, double and triple trailer endorsement, that I had a Class A CDL learner’s permit from Idaho, but that I let it expire before I took my driving test.

I agreed that I would call the North Dakota DMV Friday to find out what I had to do to get my Class A CDL in North Dakota.  Thursday night, I looked at the North Dakota DMV website to see what the requirements were.  One of the things that was going to be a problem for me, which I never encountered before in my life, was that due to this new “Real ID” or “Enhanced Driver’s License” program in North Dakota, I was going to need to provide either a valid U.S. passport or a certified Birth Certificate.

Up until August of 2017, I had a certified copy of my Birth Certificate, until Lowell Kern Jr. of Belfield stole my truck and took everything out of my truck, including my original Social Security Card and my certified Birth Certificate.  How was I going to get another certified Birth Certificate from Florida where I was born 49 years ago, and how long was this going to take?

I was beginning to become angry, I don’t want a fucking Class A CDL, I don’t want to have to jump through a bunch of hoops with the North Dakota DMV.  Once you have a CDL, the legal blood alcohol limit is no longer 0.08%, it drops down to 0.04%, and you have to report any traffic citations to your employer immediately.

And what is this about working seventy to eighty hours per week?  This means you would be working six to seven days per week, every week, having only one or no days off per week.  What would I do with my cat then, I guess I would have to get rid of him.  When would I do laundry, when would I do personal errands, when would I pay my bills?

Where I was going, there are no grocery stores and there are hardly any restaurants.  You end up eating horrible gas station and oil field truck stop packaged food, day after day after day.

Why would I want to live like this?  Living like this there is really no reason to be alive, working every day, being tired and filthy dirty all day, being excruciatingly cold, with only horrible rotten food to eat, and only seeing fat, ugly, ham-fisted, mean nasty battle-axe North Dakota women every day.  I would make $100,000 per year, but I would pay about $30,000 in income tax right off the top.

I told him that I was not currently physically or mentally able to work like this.  I have done this before, like many, many people who came to North Dakota to work during the Oil Boom, and I don’t really want to do this again, it is not worth it, living like this.

I talked to a friend of mine on Friday of last week, and he said that it was good that I didn’t take this oil field job, the price of North Dakota oil is currently down to $20 per barrel.  What this means is, with the price of oil this low, is that oil companies will suspend all oil field work at this time, and there will be many oil field worker layoffs very soon.

I felt very bad that I almost resigned from my O.K. job that I like, for a very miserable job that I wouldn’t be able to do for long, or wouldn’t have for very long with oil field work being shut down due to the very low price of oil.

Brenton Sawin Needs To Screen His Guests More Carefully

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In about 2013 a man named Brenton Sawin who lives in Lexington, Kentucky, started a YouTube channel called “Brenton Sawin Mysteries To Search”.  He has uploaded approximately 380 videos to this YouTube channel, most of them on the subject of Bigfoot or Dogman encounters.

In most of Brenton Sawin’s videos, he begins with a brief introduction covering recent events, certain topics that were discussed in previous videos, or updates on what is happening with previous guests.  After the introduction, Brenton usually interviews one guest for one hour, more or less, discussing with them their Bigfoot or Dogman sighting or encounter.

There are several ways in which Brenton Sawin’s YouTube channel differs from other YouTube channels that deal with the Bigfoot and Dogman subject.  Unlike the other YouTube channels which usually have Bigfoot or Dogman encounter stories that last ten to fifteen minutes, and are fairly sanitized and not too shocking, Brenton will interview a guest for thirty minutes to ninety minutes, and the interviews get into Bigfoot or Dogman behavior that is very gruesome, nasty, and horrific.

If anyone ever wanted to tell everything that happened to them or everything they experienced, without being censored, no matter how strange, horrible, or bizarre it was, Brenton will let his guests do it.  What this has resulted in, is Brenton and his viewers have become more and more familiar with Bigfoot and Dogman behavior that was previously not publicized.

For instance, both from Brenton Sawin’s YouTube channel, and from other Bigfoot researchers, many people are now aware that there are at least four different types of Bigfoot, one of them being Dogman, which very much resembles a werewolf.  Both from Brenton Sawin, and from other Bigfoot researchers, people have been made aware that Bigfoot, and especially Dogman, can be vicious and aggressive, taking and killing household pets and livestock.

Where Brenton Sawin’s YouTube channel is different, is that many of his guests will talk about Bigfoot or Dogman following people home, looking in their windows, trying to get into people’s houses, actually getting into people’s houses, carrying people off, and killing people.  There have been occasions where guests have talked about Bigfoot having sex with horses.

There is some really nasty deviant behavior that Brenton Sawin’s guests have described witnessing Bigfoot or Dogman engage in.  Some of this behavior, such the rape of human women, has also been reported by Bigfoot researcher Tim Coonbo Baker, and written about by a woman in her book titled “50 Years With Bigfoot”.

The problem is, that myself and some of Brenton Sawin’s other viewers, have noticed that some of his guests appear to be making shit up, making everything up, based on what they have read and heard elsewhere.  I don’t mind listening to people’s stories, but I don’t want to waste my time watching Brenton Sawin’s YouTube channel if people are going to come on his show with a completely made up story.

For instance, about one week ago, I watched one of Brenton Sawin’s videos from 2016, that was about a young man, claiming to be a 21 year old Marine currently stationed in North Carolina named “Phil”, who grew up on a 2,400 acre ranch in northeastern Montana.  In this young man’s story about shooting and tracking a Bigfoot on his family’s ranch in Montana when he was 13 years old, there came to be more and more facts that could not be true.

Phil kept talking about his huge Norwegian Elk Hound, who weighed 160 lbs, who was bred to hunt bear and mountain lion, who once attacked and knocked over a Black Bear.  Myself and other listeners looked up Norwegian Elk Hound, they only get up to 55 lbs, they are not a large dog, they are a small dog, and they don’t attack bears and mountain lions, they only track them and bark at them, they are a hound.

Phil said that his family’s ranch in Montana was so remote, that it was a three hour drive to the nearest town.  You can drive half way across the state of Montana in three hours, there is nowhere in Montana that is more than an hour’s drive from a town.

Other viewers left comments like, “I have lived in northeast Montana my entire life, it is mostly flat, there are no mountains like you described, there are no Grizzly Bear like you described, there are no Russian Boar like you described, and there are hardly any Black Bear.  You are not from northeastern Montana like you claim.”

Finally, a lot of people called “Bullshit!” on Phil’s story, when Phil said that he had four Bigfoot encounters in Montana, three in California, and two in North Carolina.  Keep in mind, that Phil is only 21 years old.

I have recently watched some more Brenton Sawin YouTube videos, where there is an individual who has been a guest of Brenton Sawin a couple of times, who may be making up stories.  This guest says that he is currently employed as a Fish & Game Officer, and during his first interview, he described shooting a Bigfoot with a 30.06 rifle twice, and it ran off carrying a deer.  Later, in a second interview, this Fish & Game Officer said that he was attacked by a group of Bigfoot, knocked unconscious, dragged away, stripped of his bullet proof vest and firearm, and that his service dog was killed by the Bigfoot.

Not me, but other viewers, began leaving comments like, “Come on man, no Fish & Game Officers carry a Desert Eagle 0.50 caliber pistol as their duty weapon.  It wouldn’t be allowed, they aren’t reliable, they are too heavy to carry around all day on your belt, and if you had ever been in the military like you claimed, you would know all this.”  They also left comments like, “You claim that you were also carrying a shotgun loaded with slugs.  For the type of work that you are doing, slugs drop tremendously in 200 yards, they have a ballistic path like throwing a rock, anyone working for Fish & Game would know to use heavy shot, if not a standard issue AR-15 or AR-10.  I don’t believe you work for Fish & Game.”

It is suspicious to me, that this Fish & Game Officer in the course of a year or two, shot one Bigfoot with a rifle, and then later was attacked by a group of Bigfoot, knocked unconscious, dragged off, and his service dog was killed.  If this Fish & Game Officer is not making all this up, and this actually happened, one of the reasons why I am doubting his stories, is because of other guests that Brenton Sawin has had on, that appear to be making their stories up, like the 21 year old Marine named Phil from Montana.

I wish that Brenton Sawin would screen his guests more carefully, and when it looks like his guests may have been making up their stories, to go ahead and tell listeners that he was sorry this happened, that it was not his intention to have made up stories.

Yes, Brenton Sawin’s YouTube channel is supposed to be for entertainment, but it is not entertaining to me, to have people lie about who they are, where they are from, what they have done in life, that they are a Marine, or a Fish & Game Officer.  In fact, it is illegal and a crime to state that you were in the military when you were not, and to impersonate a Law Enforcement Officer.

Here is one of the interviews with the Fish & Game Officer:

I Have Looked At North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum’s Wife, And She Is O.K.

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Last week when I wrote a blog post about North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum not liking the Dickinson area, a reader left a comment that indicated maybe I should look up the Governor’s wife, so I did.

In November of 2016, just before he was sworn in as Governor, Doug Burgum married Kathryn Helgaas, who was about 52 years old at the time.  I looked at many current photographs of Kathryn Helgaas Burgum, and even though she is now about 54 years old, she looks like a hot 40 year old housewife.

Here is what I mean, imagine that you are in high school, and there is this really good looking girl who is a cheerleader, and you meet her mom, and her mom is way hotter, and you are much, much more attracted to her mom, that would be Kathryn Helgaas Burgum.

If I said that Kathryn Helgaas Burgum was a trophy wife, I would be only half right.  Yes she is pretty, yes she is hot, but she had lived a life as a professional, self-supporting, working woman for many years before she became married to the Governor.

In February of 2017, Kathryn Helgaas Burgum had an interview with a Grand Forks Herald newspaper reporter, where she explained publicly for the first time, that she had once had an alcohol addiction, that she had sought treatment for.  She realized that she was drinking too much, and she voluntarily went into an alcohol rehabilitation program, though no one, not even her closest friends or family members had any idea that she had a drinking problem.

The reason why Kathryn Helgaas Burgum gave this interview to a newspaper reporter, was because she said that she wanted to be able to help remove the stigma from people seeking treatment for alcohol and other substance addictions.  Perhaps, she wanted to give her story first-hand, so that some tabloid newspaper wouldn’t be able to make it look like she was hiding a troubled past.

The most suspicious and doubtful thing that I think that Kathryn Helgaas Burgum has ever done, is live in Texas and work in human resources.

Regarding her drinking problem, Kathryn Helgaas Burgum said, “It was just part of my DNA that was going to show up at some point.”  Yes, I was going to get to this.  Having watched several seasons of the television series “Vikings” on the History Channel, there are some characteristics or traits of Scandinavian and Norwegian women that you should be aware of.

Whether it is the Governor’s wife Kathryn Helgaas Burgum, or North Dakota Representative Kelly Armstrong’s wife Kjersti Armstrong, or Dickinson City Attorney Janilyn Murtha, though they may appear quiet and meek, because of their heredity and genetics, they have the latent characteristic, or even the repressed desire, to do things like:  Take off all of their clothes and go swimming in icy water, wear just the bare minimum of animal skins or furs as clothing in winter, throw axes at people, stab people with knives, shoot people with arrows, try to spear people, or go boating.

If I lived down the street from Kathryn Helgaas Burgum before she moved into the Governor’s residence, or down the street from Kjersti Armstrong, or down the street from Janilyn Murtha, before I went outside of my house, I would look out the window to see if I could see them, and see what they were doing.  I would look to see what kind of mood they were in, what they were doing, and what they were holding in their hands before I would come outside, because sooner or later, their nature is bound to come out in them, it’s only a matter of time.

I am going to go ahead and put Kathryn Helgaas Burgum on my “List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson”.  I won’t fault her if some of her natural genetic tendencies come out, being no more surprised than I would at a lioness leaping on a buffalo, it’s just her nature.

Dickinson’s New Campground Ordinance Limiting RVs’ Stay To 270 Days

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I have worked in the oil field in Texas, Utah, and North Dakota.  For some occupations, especially welders, pipe fitters, electricians, equipment operators, and Union workers, it is sometimes easier and more practical for the workers to own and live in RVs and travel trailers because work project duration can last from two months to two years.

Other factors that make owning and living in an RV or travel trailer more practical are that some projects require a peak amount of welders, pipe fitters, electricians, equipment operators, and other workers at certain times to get a particular phase of construction completed, then once this phase of construction is completed, the number of welders, pipe fitters, electricians, etcetera is greatly reduced.  No one knows ahead of time, which welders, pipe fitters, electricians, equipment operators, and workers will get to remain on the project, which ones will be let go, and when exactly the layoffs will happen.

With some people working in occupations where they really do not know if they will get to work on a project for two months, two years, and when exactly they will be laid off from a particular project, these people have found that it is more practical to own and live in RVs and travel trailers.  It would be foolish and a mistake to sign a lease for an apartment or a house when you could very likely get laid off in a couple of months.

Try to think about this and realize this, though real estate agents, appraisers, accountants, and city employees may remain in their job in a town for five, ten, twenty years, people who make their living working on pipeline construction, oil storage terminal construction, refinery construction, and other large industrial projects, they no longer have a job once their pipeline, oil storage terminal, or refinery construction is completed.  They have to move on to the next large industrial project, where again they will not know if they will get to work on this project for two months or two years, because the number and type of occupations needed for each phase of construction varies and changes.

Welders, pipe fitters, electricians, equipment operators, and Union workers may purchase a new or newer RV or travel trailer for as much as $80,000.  They may expect this RV or travel trailer to last them eight to ten years.  One of the benefits of living in an RV or travel trailer, is that your personal possessions, important paper work, clothing, cookware, food, bed, furniture, TV, stereo, computer, is all right there, and you don’t have to pack everything up, and carry it down stairs out to a moving van, every time you move.

But in cold climates, there are a few laborious and time consuming things that RV and travel trailer owners have to do when they park in a campground.  They have to install tight-fitting insulated skirting along the bottom perimeter of their RV or trailer in order to keep their grey-water tank, black-water tank, and fresh water lines from freezing.  They will likely have to install electrical heat tape on both their sewer line and their fresh water line.  They may need to construct a 6 ft x 6 ft mud room at the entrance door to their trailer in order to be able to take off muddy boots, and muddy overalls before entering their trailer, and also to keep from letting all of the heat out of their trailer when there are high winds.

But the City of Dickinson, the City Commissioners, the residents of Dickinson, and the property owners in Dickinson do not care about what is convenient or practical for other people.  They don’t care, and in fact, the property owners, property managers, and real estate agents like the idea that by putting a limit of 270 days on living in an RV or travel trailer, that this would potentially force workers to rent an apartment, rent a house, or buy a house.

I have tried to point out again and again, that when Dickinson “does things to people”, like quadrupling the price of rent during the oil boom, over aggressive stopping of everyone for DUI by Police, over aggressive following of people by Police, trying to convict people for a 20 year sentence for seeking sex, a Civil Service Commission that has never once decided in favor of a City employee, and generally treating out of state workers like shit, no one wants to come to Dickinson or stay in Dickinson once they find out what it is like.

Limiting the amount of time that a person working in Dickinson can stay in a campground in their RV or travel trailer to 270 days, is not going to turn all of these people into apartment renters, house renters, or house buyers in Dickinson.  Many of them, who may have spent up to $80,000 on their RV or travel trailer, will just plan on moving on in nine months.  Not only not renting or buying a home in Dickinson, but not renting in a campground or living in Dickinson at all.

I don’t know when, if ever, the people in Dickinson will realize that they are driving people out of Dickinson to such an extent that Dickinson will eventually look like Belfield, Richardton, Taylor, Gladstone, New England, Dodge, or Haliday.  To the property owners that are so greedy, what will your property be worth when no one wants to come to Dickinson and more and more people leave Dickinson?

Miss America And Miss America USA To Now Include Math Word Problems

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In 2018, in order to be more inclusive to fat girls and unattractive women, the Miss America pageant under the leadership of Gretchen Carlson, decided to discontinue the swimsuit competition.  So that fat girls and unattractive women have a chance at winning, the pageants have decided to include math word problems.

My understanding is that the competition will now be judged as follows:  Personal interview 40%, evening gown 30%, math word problems 30%.  The math word problem section, will consist of three problems, each worth 10%, and you have to show your work, or you will receive 0% credit.

What this means is, that in order to win, a pageant contestant will probably have to correctly answer all three math word problems.  For example, a very attractive young lady with a good personality might get very high points in the personal interview phase and the evening gown phase, but if she misses one or two math word problems, points-wise, there is almost no way she could win.

Here are some examples of the kind of math word problems that will be given in the North Dakota pageants:

A 2010 Dodge 2500 diesel with a 6.7 liter Cummins engine gets 17 miles per gallon in town, and 22 miles per gallon on the highway.  If you had to drive this truck from Amidon to Belfield on Highway 85 for 34 miles, how many gallons of diesel fuel would you need?

Answer:  one gallon/22 miles x 34 miles =  1.545 gallons

 

Your boyfriend works as an apprentice electrician and he makes $3,200 per month gross pay before taxes are taken out.  After taxes are taken out, his take home pay is $2,560 per month.  However, $400 in child support payments are then taken from his take home pay each month.  A bank is willing to lend him money for a home mortgage, with monthly payments not to exceed 40% of $2,160.  What is the maximum monthly mortgage payment that your boyfriend could make?

Answer:  0.40 x $2,160 = $864

 

Walmart sells packages of three women’s panties for $21.50.  Target sells packages of two women’s panties for $20.  And Victoria’s Secret sells women’s panties for $25 each.  Given $100, and the ability to buy these women’s panties from Walmart, Target, and Victoria’s Secret, what is the most amount of panties that you could buy?

Answer:  Twelve panties.  You could buy four packages of Walmart Panties for $86, giving you twelve panties.  Buying from Target would give you only ten panties for $100.

What North Dakota Land Owners Should Have Done With Their Oil Revenue Money

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In yesterday’s blog post about North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum not liking the Dickinson area, in the last paragraph I wrote the sarcastic comment that the Governor was very impressed with how land owners spent their oil revenue money on luxury fifth-wheel travel trailers, side-by-side buggies, and four-dour four-wheel-drive lifted one-ton diesel trucks.  I want to explain and elaborate on why the behavior of Dickinson area people is irritating and ignorant to people elsewhere in North Dakota, the U.S., and the World.

In western North Dakota, where farmers were poor historically, when the most recent Oil Boom came in 2007, thousands of land owners began receiving large initial oil lease payments, and then later monthly oil well production payments.  Not having had this kind of money before, and not knowing what to do with it, many local land owners could only think to buy the biggest and most expensive pickup truck that they could find, the biggest and most expensive fifth-wheel travel trailer they could find, and then the most expensive four-wheelers and side-by-side buggies they could find.

To educated, professional people, who either had good incomes, would have good incomes, or came from middle-class, upper middle-class, or wealthy families, this kind of spending of once-in-a-lifetime windfall money, was foolish, ignorant, reckless, obnoxious, and even tragic.  The money that could have benefited entire families for generations to come, was going to disappear within ten years, like it never even happened.

To explain this, some of the larger four-door four-wheel-drive lifted one-ton diesel pickup trucks can cost $80,000 new.  The largest fifth-wheel luxury travel trailers $80,000 new.  The nicest side-by-side off-road buggies $20,000.  Add these three items up, and the total is $180,000.  Then add sales tax, registration fees, title fees, and insurance, and the cost is easily $200,000.

Ten years from now, the truck will be worth about $20,000, the travel trailer about $20,000, and the side-by-side buggy about $5,000, altogether about $45,000.  Together, this is a $155,000 loss on an investment of $200,000.

To educated people, or wealthy people, with an initial investment of $200,000 in the right stocks or the right real estate, ten years later you could have $400,000.  It is a tragedy that someone could take $200,000 and turn it into $45,000 ten years down the road.

So when Dickinson area North Dakotans think that they are impressing people when they are driving down the road in an $80,000 truck, towing an $80,000 trailer, towing a $20,000 side-by-side buggy, they are actually embarrassing themselves, showing their ignorance, and showing their lack of understanding about money.

Rather than staying in a campground in a travel-trailer every year for ten years, and at the end of ten years the truck, trailer, and buggy are worth $45,000, having lost $155,000 in depreciation, the initial cost of $200,000, if it were invested, could have paid for a luxury vacation anywhere on Earth, not for ten years, but for an entire lifetime.

How should have North Dakotans spent or invested their initial lease payment and oil revenue money, in a way that would have been the most beneficial to themselves and their families?  In the oil field where I worked in southwest Texas in 2012, the ranch owners built guest houses or guest cottages with their oil revenue money, and I will explain why this was a good idea.

In southwest Texas, the land was kind of barren and desolate, not that much different than the land in western North Dakota.  Instead of getting down to -30 degrees Fahrenheit like North Dakota, it got up to 125 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the summer in southwest Texas.  Like the farms in North Dakota, the ranches in southwest Texas were not very fancy sometimes, because the owners had not always had money.

In the oil field where I worked in Texas, once the ranch owners began receiving oil revenue money, many of them built guest houses or guest cottages on their property, that ranged from nice to very impressive.  I don’t mean that they went and bought single-wide or double-wide manufactured homes and placed them next to each other on their property like a trailer park, I mean they put a lot of thought and pride into creating something on their property that was an enhancement, improvement, and beautification.

The ranch owners would pick a spot on their property that they had always thought of as a good place to build a house, whether on a hill with a good view, in the middle of some trees that provided shade, or near a fishing pond.  They would think out and plan what kind of house or cottage they wanted, would it have a front porch, a back porch, a patio for Barbequeing, a swimming pool, a grass lawn, landscaping?

The ranchers intended to rent out their guest house or guest cottage to hunters, or oil field companies if it were going to be used for professional personnel.  Or, they would allow their friends, relatives, or guests to stay in their guest house or guest cottage.  But in any case, they built, furnished, and decorated their guest house or guest cottage to be something that was attractive, inviting, enjoyable, and something that they could show off and be proud of.

In the Dickinson area, if land owners who began receiving oil revenue would have built nice guest houses or guest cottages on their property, this would have been something that was very beneficial to themselves, their family, and others.  Instead of spending $80,000 on a fifth-wheel travel trailer that would be worth only $20,000 ten years later, this $80,000 would be enough to build a nice guest cottage on their land.

During hunting season, pheasant hunters or deer hunters would have paid $1,000 per week for a nice, furnished cottage on a farm in rural western North Dakota.  For just four weeks rental per year, this would have been $4,000 per year income for the next twenty years, re-paying the $80,000 initial cost to build it.  The other forty-eight weeks per year, friends, family members, adult children, or grandchildren could have been invited to visit and stay in the cottage.

During the Oil Boom, a guest cottage could have been rented to a professional person working in the oil field for $1,500 per month, which equals $18,000 per year, taking only five years to re-pay the $80,000 initial cost to build it.

When I mentioned that this guest house building or guest cottage building would have been helpful to others, consider the following.  Many adult children, or other family members, either through divorce, separation, job loss, accident, injury, or illness become temporarily unable to afford a place to live.  Or, sometimes an elderly parent may temporarily or permanently become unable to live on their own.  Or, a friend or family member may be unable to afford to pay for anywhere to stay on vacation.  Or, a friend or relative may need a low cost place to stay when trying to find work in the Dickinson area.

Yes, I know you don’t want to help anyone, go buy your $80,000 fifth wheel that will be worth $20,000 in ten years.

I Don’t Think That Governor Doug Burgum Likes The Dickinson Area

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I don’t think that North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum likes the Dickinson area, and I will explain why.  I got this impression when Governor Burgum stepped in, uninvited, to steer both the Theodore Roosevelt Library and the Theodore Roosevelt Museum away from Dickinson in the Summer of 2018 .  I became even more certain when Governor Burgum announced out of nowhere recently, that he would like to relocate the women’s prison away from New England to Bismarck.

The Theodore Roosevelt Library and the Theodore Roosevelt Museum would have been very good for Dickinson, increasing the prestige, importance, and image of both Dickinson State University, and the town of Dickinson.  It would have also benefited the local economy greatly.  Now, closing the women’s prison in New England, 26 miles south of Dickinson, will remove New England’s largest local employer.

I know why Governor Doug Burgum does not like the Dickinson area, and I really want to explain it to you.  On this blog website, I have tried to explain Dickinson for the past four years, and it seems like it is impossible to get through to most of the local people.  The local people ignore and disregard what I write, and they don’t know that failing to recognize their shortcomings is going to be fatal for Dickinson in the end.

Governor Doug Burgum was born in, and grew up in, the small agricultural town of Arthur, North Dakota, population 400.  He knows, exactly, exactly, how people are in Dickinson, Belfield, New England, Richardton, Taylor, Amidon, Bowman, and Watford City.

Governor Doug Burgum graduated from North Dakota State University located in Fargo, North Dakota, the largest city in North Dakota with over 100,000 people.  Governor Burgum then attended Stanford University in California where he received a Masters of Business Administration.

For those of you who don’t know, Stanford University in California is one of the most difficult colleges in the United States to get into.  Stanford only admits the best of the best, the smartest of the smartest.  Once you get in, you are surrounded by some of the most intelligent and brightest people in the world.  At Stanford, Doug Burgum became friends with a classmate who later became the CEO of Microsoft.

After graduating from Stanford University, Doug Burgum went to work in Chicago for a short while.  Soon he returned to Fargo, and he helped form a business software company called Great Plains Software, which he became president of.  In 2001 Great Plains Software was sold to Microsoft for $1.1 billion.

I have given you Doug Burgum’s background, growing up in an isolated North Dakota agricultural town with 400 people, getting out, going to college in Fargo, getting an MBA from Stanford University in California, creating a billion dollar software company in Fargo, to make sure that you understand, that Doug Burgum has already experienced for the first eighteen years of his life, the stupid bullshit that you people in Dickinson, New England, Belfield, Richardton, Bowman never cease to get out of and put behind you, the kind of ignorance that never stops.

Because of the barren, desolate, freezing plains of North Dakota, where there weren’t even any trees to build houses out of, and people had to stack cut grass sod to make 10’x12′ houses for their entire family to live in, it was a struggle for the first settlers in North Dakota to even survive.  There was no hospitality or generosity, or help given to others, it was a matter of each family for themselves.

It wasn’t a matter of anyone getting ahead, it was a matter of merely surviving from one year to the next.  The only way that anyone might feel like they got ahead in North Dakota, was when someone else failed.  In fact, if someone failed, if they died or had to leave, there might be some land or some improvement that was left behind to scavenge.  This was the origin of North Dakotans withholding help from others, hoping that other people failed, or seeing other people’s failure as a win for them.

This was also part of the origin of North Dakotans’ hatred of education and people with an education.  Someone else getting an education was a threat to them.  The only thing that North Dakotans had to look forward to was someone else failing, so someone else benefiting from education was a detriment to them reaping from someone else’s failure.

If you ever got out of the small North Dakota towns where people withhold help, seek other people’s failure, and hope for other people’s failure, to large cities or large universities, you would see a change in attitudes, outlook, and beliefs, where people believe in opportunity, growth, improvement, innovation, prosperity, success, collaboration, and shared success.  The attitude that, “A rising tide, raises all boats.”

In contrast, the epitome of Dickinson, Belfield, New England, or Bowman is a 300 lb, ham-fisted, battle-axe woman, working at a local business who will not serve customers, leering and sneering, snarling, “We didn’t ask you to come here!”

Or, the local Police in Dickinson knowing that there is an extreme shortage of women, posing as a woman on-line wanting to meet men for sex, then luring a recent DSU business graduate from Nepal to have sex, then acting like a character out of the movie Deliverance, “Oooooeeee!  Look what we got here boy!  We going to put you in jail for 20 years!  That’s right, we going to put you in jail for the next 20 years!  Ooooooeeeeeee!”

Or, that western North Dakota companies were responsible for a two to three year backlog of unpaid wage complaints with the North Dakota Department of Labor.  And western North Dakota property owners quadrupled the rents and housing prices to the highest in the United States to where workers were sleeping in their vehicles, under bridges, and in the bushes.

So yes, Governor Doug Burgum, uninvited, had to intervene in order to steer both the Theodore Roosevelt Library and the Theodore Roosevelt Museum away from Dickinson, lest people from across the country and around the World be accosted or harmed by the local people here in the Dickinson area.  The Governor was probably thinking, “God knows what the people in Dickinson would have done to the tourists and scholars that would have arrived from around the World.  They would probably have been beaten up, extorted, robbed, and put in jail.”

Something else that the local people in Dickinson do not know or understand yet, if Dickinson State University does not hurry up and immediately get underway with a technical training program for industry and the oil field, Dickinson State University will be shut down.

The way that the State of North Dakota looks at it, the elected representatives, civil servants, and educators, “Why should we use state money to fund Dickinson State University?  It is a publicity nightmare for the State of North Dakota:  Awarding degrees to foreign students who have not completed the course work;  The Attorney General having to dissolve the DSU Foundation over questionable financial practices;  The unaccountability of the Strom Foundation for the spending of donations;  DSU recruiting thug hoodlum athletes;  The evidence of DSU graduates not having college level literacy.  Wouldn’t it be better for higher education in North Dakota, to no longer waste money on DSU, which only downgrades and weakens the reputation of higher of education in North Dakota?”

What probably really impressed Governor Doug Burgum about western North Dakota, with thousands of local land owners receiving oil leases and oil revenue, what they have done with this money.  The new fifth-wheel luxury travel trailers, side-by-side buggies, and lifted four-door four-wheel-drive one-ton diesel trucks, makes the Governor proud of this investment in North Dakota for future generations.

Columnist Rob Port, And A 12 Year Old Shooting A Wildebeest

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Every day I try to read the Dickinson Press newspaper stories on the internet.  Just now, I read a short article by columnist Rob Port titled “It’s Just An Animal”.

I was shocked at the title of this article, what Rob Port had to say, and what this article was about.  Apparently, a 12 year old girl from Fargo named Sylvia Peach Leiviska, shot and killed a 600 lb wildebeest on a game preserve in South Africa.

Everything about this sickens and astonishes me.  I can not understand, that people believe that because we have higher intelligence than other animals, that we have the right to kill them.  If this kind of thinking is O.K., sound, and logical, it should be acceptable to kill stupid people, developmentally disabled people, mentally disabled people, mentally ill people, drug addicted people, and unproductive people.

Do people even realize, that there is a whole spectrum of intelligence among people, and if it ever came to it being acceptable for intelligent people to kill less intelligent people, many of you, many of us, would find out that we were deemed killable?

Or, do people even realize, that there are more advanced, more intelligent beings in the Universe, and if it is O.K. for more intelligent beings to kill and harvest the less intelligent beings, that this means us?

Yes, I understand that if I eat animal meat, that an animal was killed for it.  I wish that I never would have started out in life eating animal meat, and that there was an equal or better substitute for the food value of animal meat.

If I had to personally shoot and butcher cows and pigs in order to get meat, I would eat a lot less meat, maybe none at all.  I don’t even like to fish very much anymore, and when I do, I release the fish right away.

Even when I was a kid, but especially as I grew older, I could see that all animals, including us humans, have a similar life.  We start out as fumbling infants, and spend our entire lives trying to get food, water, make a shelter, stay warm and dry, obtain resources that we need, and keep ourselves and our family safe.

Us humans, with our language, writing, science, technology, and manufacturing, can produce water resistant clothing, very insulated clothing, high magnification spotting scopes, long range accurate rifles with high magnification scopes, off-road hunting buggies and four-wheelers, large four-door four-wheel-drive 500 horsepower off-road trucks, and we use all of this to shoot an animal, that doesn’t have anything, and then celebrate this like it was a personal victory?

The domestic cattle that we raise for food, if I had to do it, or for whoever has to do it, I would walk right up to it and shoot it in the head as quickly as possible, so that the animal would not experience being terrorized, it would just be dead.  And I sure as hell would not be proud of it, and wanting to have my picture taken.

No animal, not even Rob Port, would like being in an enclosed game preserve, having lived through the experience before of tourists coming to try to hunt and shoot them, knowing that they are captive and that it is only a matter of time before they are killed.

Maybe one night, on a desolate stretch of highway, some aliens will stop Rob Port’s car, chase him around through the woods, taser him, have their young take a photograph beside his immobilized body, and then roast him on a spit alive, because that’s the most tasty way to do it.  It would be all in fun and sport for the aliens, but not for Rob, but he doesn’t really feel anything, because he’s not as evolved as the aliens, as they are accustomed to saying.

Ape Creatures And Prime Rib At The Paragon In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I have gotten into or nearly gotten into more trouble at the Paragon Bowling Alley & Diner in Dickinson, North Dakota than the sum total of everywhere else I have ever been in my entire life.

There are only two reasons now why I ever go to the Paragon Bowling Alley & Diner: if one of my friends is there, or if it is Prime Rib night on Saturday.

This Saturday I spent working on one of my vehicles at my friend’s house, and going to Mac’s Tool, Tractor Supply, and Menards to get parts.  Once it got dark at about 5:30 p.m., I couldn’t see what I was doing anymore, so I called it quits for the day.  I was hungry, and I was planning on going to the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant on the way home, when I realized that it was Saturday, and it was Prime Rib night at the Paragon.

I decided that I would drive by the Paragon, and if one of my friends was there, I would eat there.  I didn’t see any of my friends’ vehicles in the parking lot, but I parked my vehicle, and I went inside to see who was in the diner.  There were not very many people eating in the diner, it was not crowded, maybe a total of ten people at three different tables, so I thought that I would eat here.

I sat at the counter in order to not take up a table in case other groups of people came to eat.  The Prime Rib dinner at the Paragon on Saturday night is $16.95, and it comes with a baked potato, and your choice of soup, or a bowl of lettuce.

John Mueller who is in his late fifties, is the manager of the Paragon Bowling Alley & Diner, which was established by his father, Dick Mueller, in the 1960s or 1970s.  John’s mother Bernice, who is in her eighties, still works in the diner sometimes.

If you ever watched the television show “Fantasy Island” in the 1970s, where all of the guests were greeted by the character “Mr. Roarke”, who always wore a white three-piece suit, John Mueller is kind of like Mr. Roarke, in a way.  You see, just as Mr. Roarke planned out an elaborate fantasy for each one of his guests, John Mueller hires your fantasy waitresses, if your fantasy happens to be being waited on by drug addict women from Couer D’Alene, Seattle, or Spokane, or women from the county jail, or women from prison, or the latest fantasy, female Ape Creatures.

When I went to the Paragon on Thursday morning this week to see a friend of mine, and when I went to the Paragon this Saturday night, I saw that John Mueller has hired a whole entire clan of Ape Creatures.  On Thursday morning, one of the big female Ape Creatures who weighed about 300 lbs, she had orange hair, and she was fairly well trained, as she could do most things, but in a blunt kind of way.

On this Saturday night, there was a different 300 lb female Ape Creature with very short light colored hair waitressing, along with a smaller female Ape Creature weighing about 225 lb, with dark hair.  Both of these creatures were going through the motions of waitressing, though they appeared to be a little confused.

I watched these two Ape Creatures for about five minutes.  It was taking all of their effort and concentration to bring things to the three tables of customers who had already been seated.  What appeared to be causing some confusion, and posed a dilemma for them, was that they didn’t grasp the concept that they didn’t have to stand in front of the cook’s window waiting for food to be put out, that they could go and do other things.

Partly because of their fascination with the cook’s food window where they remained standing and staring, or perhaps because I reminded them of someone who had once shot and killed one of their family members, neither of the two Ape Creatures came over to take my order.

I went looking for John Mueller who I had seen when I arrived, to tell him that his Ape Creatures were not taking my order, but apparently John had gone to the other side of the island, as he was no where to be found.

If you know anything about me, you might think that getting to see Ape Creatures up close and eating Prime Rib would be an enjoyable night for me.  It turns out that I only want to see Ape Creatures in the wild, and that they do not make very good waitresses.  I never did get any Prime Rib to eat.

I Wish That I Could Force You To Understand Dickinson, North Dakota

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I have been writing about Dickinson, North Dakota on this blog website for a little over four years now.  For those of you who don’t know why I started writing about Dickinson, it was because Dickinson, Williston, and Minot, North Dakota were the towns in the middle of the Oil Boom in North Dakota that occurred from 2007 through 2014, and I was living in Dickinson.

During the Oil Boom years, there was a great amount of chaos, confusion, development, excitement, optimism, hype, misinformation, and people being taken advantage of.  For those of you who don’t remember, have forgotten, or never knew what happened from 2007 through 2014 in Dickinson, here is a short synopsis:

Most people did not know that 2007 through 2014 was North Dakota’s third Oil Boom.  There was an oil discovery boom in the 1950s, and there was an oil market shortage boom in the late 1970s.  Dickinson had experienced an influx of oil field workers and oil companies before, in the 1950s, and the 1970s.  Well-informed people, well-educated people, and intelligent business people in Dickinson knew from past experience that these Oil Booms last about seven years, that’s why they are called a “Boom” in the first place.

However, even though there were very wealthy people, moderately wealthy people, influential people, politicians, elected representatives, large land owners, and community leaders in Dickinson who all knew from the previous two Oil Booms in North Dakota, that these Oil Booms last for about seven years, rather than trying to manage this Oil Boom in the most effective way for everyone, they either tried to benefit personally at the expense and suffering of others, or they did nothing to stop the taking advantage and suffering of others.

For those of you who were not here, or do not know what I am talking about when I write about the taking advantage of others and the suffering of others, I will explain:

All over the United States, television, radio, newspaper, and magazine media frequently announced that everyone working in North Dakota was making over $100,000 per year due to the Oil Boom.  This was not true at all, the average wage rate in western North Dakota was about $15 per hour at the time.

Believing that they were going to make $100,000 per year in North Dakota like they heard about, people who were struggling financially, or who were broke, used the very last money that they had to travel to Dickinson or Williston.  When they got here, one-bedroom apartments that had once rented for $300 per month, were now $1,500 per month.  With $3,000 due at lease signing for first month’s rent and security deposit, for the cheapest apartments available, most people could not afford a place to live.

Though business was booming in Dickinson, and many wealthy people were becoming even wealthier, there was deliberately and intentionally no homeless shelter in Dickinson.  The people who had been lured to North Dakota by the announcements that everyone was making $100,000 per year, ended up sleeping in their cars in the parking lot of WalMart or the Tiger Truck Stop.  Or, if they arrived in Dickinson by bus or by hitch hiking, they slept under bridges, in the bushes at Patterson Lake, or in the bushes behind businesses.  In the winter, it gets down to -30 degrees Fahrenheit in Dickinson.

When quick, short-term housing solutions, such as the permitting of temporary housing called “man-camps” were proposed, the building permits were denied, due to citizens of Dickinson supposedly fearing “rape” from all the men.  However, the permits for many, many large apartment complexes were approved, even though the occupants would be the same men who would have lived in the man-camps, who were feared for “rape”, but apparently not if they paid $2,000 per month rent for a new apartment.

During the Oil Boom of 2007 through 2014, I witnessed many, many people arriving in Dickinson who were financially broke, who had been lured here by television, radio, newspaper, and magazine announcements about everyone making $100,000 per year in North Dakota.  This was not true, even after living in Dickinson for six years, I have only ever personally met about three or four people who made $100,000 for even one year, working in the oil field.

One of the very first things that I tried to do when I started this blog website four years ago, was to try to get the information out there, that most people were not making $100,000 per year in North Dakota or the oil field, that this was a lie.  I tried to explain what the employment situation was really like.  I tried to explain that only young men between the ages of 18 to 30 years old, who were able-bodied, in good physical condition, with no physical defect, would even be considered to start out working on an oil drill rig, where they would work 12 hours per day, for fourteen days in a row, at about $23 per hour, and make nearly $100,000 per year.

I tried to explain in my blog posts that the vast majority of the job openings in North Dakota were not on an oil drill rig, some were in the oil field, what these other oil field jobs were, what skills and abilities these other oil field jobs required, what it would be like working in the oil field, and what other jobs there were in Dickinson.

I also wrote blog posts explaining that there was a shortage of housing in Dickinson, and that housing was very expensive.  I tried to counter what the television, radio, newspapers, magazines, Chamber of Commerce, North Dakota Job Services, business owners, and politicians were saying in order to try to get people from all over the United States to move to Dickinson or Williston, not knowing what they would be getting into.

During the Oil Boom, I had jobs where I was paid $12 per hour, $15 per hour, $16 per hour, $17, $18, $19, and $20 per hour.  But I had a college degree in engineering, management experience, experience operating heavy equipment, experience in construction, experience in heavy mechanical equipment assembly, and I was able-bodied.  From what I saw, from the people that I worked with, and my experience living in Dickinson, the average hourly wage was about $15 during the Oil Boom.

There were times when the local WalMart paid $15 per hour.  But many businesses paid less than $15 per hour for store clerks, front desk people, customer service people, retail workers, fast food workers, restaurant workers, drivers, general laborers, caregivers, and many other jobs.  For instance, the TSA at the Dickinson airport paid officers $14 per hour.

At the same time that the average hourly wage in Dickinson was about $15 per hour, some of the cheapest old one-bedroom apartments rented for $1,500 per month.  If a person worked for 50 hours each week at $15 per hour, with overtime pay that comes out to about $820 per week before taxes, about $700 per week after taxes, and a take home pay of about $2,800 per month.

Starting out with a take home pay of $2,800 per month, and subtracting rent $1,500; utilities $150; cell phone $50; car insurance $100; car payment $200; fuel $150; leaves $650 left over for the entire month for food, clothing, and everything else.  That’s less than $20 per day that you could spend on food.  What if you had a child, a medical emergency, or a major car repair?

I wondered, and I wrote about, what kind of people would double, triple, and quadruple the rent and housing prices in order to gouge and take advantage of the out-of-state workers who came to Dickinson, many of whom were struggling financially to begin with or were completely broke?

You need to know and keep in mind, that outside of Dickinson there is more vacant, barren, flat, undeveloped land than almost anywhere else in the United States.  There is no scarcity of land to build on. The land outside of Dickinson is almost as vacant as the deserts of Arizona, Nevada, or Utah.  Though the land outside of Dickinson is not as dry as the desert, it is very, very cold in North Dakota from October through April, that’s seven months out of the year, and this is one of the reasons why there are less than one million people living in the entire state of North Dakota.

With such an abundance of vacant, barren, undeveloped land, why were the rent prices in Dickinson and Williston higher than any place else in the United States, higher than even New York City and San Francisco?  The local people liked to say that it was a matter of supply and demand, low supply of housing, and a high demand for housing.  But like I just got done explaining, there is more vacant, barren, undeveloped land outside of Dickinson, than almost any place else in the United States.

Keep in mind, that the well-informed people, well-educated people, the intelligent business people, the wealthy people, and the large land owners in Dickinson knew about the oil discovery boom in the 1950s, and the oil market shortage boom in the 1970s that occurred in North Dakota.  They knew from these previous two Oil Booms, about all the workers and oil companies that come to North Dakota during the Oil Booms.

The doubling, tripling, and quadrupling of the rent and housing prices that occurred in Dickinson, was not merely a matter of supply and demand.  There was more to it than that.  If you have foreknowledge that something is going to occur, where people will experience a scarcity or lack of some necessity, and you seek to take advantage of this scarcity, and even take steps to keep this scarcity from being alleviated so that you can personally benefit financially, you are unethically taking advantage and gouging other people.  I will give a couple of examples for you to think about:

When a hurricane was approaching the east coast of the United States, and everyone needed to prepare for an emergency, some businesses used to sharply increase the price of fuel, drinking water, plywood, generators, and other emergency supplies.  Do you know that this practice is now illegal, and that business owners are now criminally prosecuted for this?

What if you and your business associates created or helped form a retirement community in Nevada, an isolated community consisting of modest, inexpensive, single-wide manufactured homes on 50 ft. x 100 ft. lots, for sale for about $50,000.  Once each of these modest manufactured homes had been sold, what if you doubled, tripled, and quadrupled the price that you charged for water, knowing that there was no other water service available, and that the cost to drill a well would be about $20,000, which these low-income residents would be unable to afford?

Just because someone can see a way to take advantage of and gouge other people on the price of a necessity that they will need, this in no way means that this is ethical, moral, or even legal.

What was actually going on in Dickinson and Williston, was that the wealthy people, the business owners, the property owners, elected representatives, politicians, community leaders, spokespeople for the oil industry, and spokespeople for the North Dakota Job Services continued to perpetuate the lie that everyone who moved to North Dakota for work was making $100,000 per year, even though they knew that this was not true, that they would make much less money than this, and that more than half of their pay would be spent on housing because they had quadrupled the price of housing in North Dakota.

The reasons for spreading this lie all over the United States and luring people to North Dakota were:

  • To bring as many people as possible to the state to be able to rent, lease, and sell all property available.
  • To bring as many people as possible to the state to occupy or buy all property available, to cause a shortage, and be able to greatly increase rents, leases, and property prices.
  • To cause the need, the requirement, or the perception, that there needed to be new apartments constructed, new housing constructed, new retail stores constructed, new grocery stores, new schools, new hospitals, and new infrastructure like water towers and roads.
  • To lure property developers and business entrepreneurs to the state build developments and start new businesses.
  • To bring customers to the state to increase business and sales.
  • To greatly increase tax revenue to the state in sales tax, personal income tax, and property tax revenue.
  • To bring a surplus of workers to the state to try to keep wages low.

After writing about all of this for four years, I realized or discovered several surprising, sinister schemes.  What is even more surprising, and kind of funny, is that most of the people who sought to take advantage of others and be predatory, have been set up for financial ruin, and they don’t even know it yet.  I will explain.

The ordinary people in Dickinson, whether local people or from out-of-state, each of them are aware of only a fraction of what is going on.  They are often very susceptible to lies and misinformation, their circumstances in life change greatly when their rent is increased, their hourly wage rate is increased, or they lose their job.  They are practically slaves or livestock, and they don’t even know it.  They were likely to parrot the phrases that they were taught, such as “This Oil Boom is going to last for the next 20 years”, and then later “The Oil Boom is coming back” or the ever perpetual phrase “Things are starting to pick up again.”

The business people, business owners, property owners, property developers, elected representatives, Chambers of Commerce, oil industry spokespeople, and North Dakota government agency spokespeople, were or are, kind of like the herders, shepherds, shearers, fleecers, milkers, and egg gatherers of the ordinary people, who are like slaves or livestock.

The business people, business owners, property owners, property developers, elected representatives, Chambers of Commerce, oil industry spokespeople, and North Dakota government agency spokespeople thought that they were all in agreement, all with the same program, of continuing to encourage people to move to North Dakota because it accomplishes their goals of having customers, making sales, having properties rented or leased, having properties sell, keeping property values high, and keeping tax revenue coming in.  So they all keep making announcements that there are thousands of high paying job vacancies in the oil field of North Dakota, even though there aren’t.

But when I, and several of my friends were unable to get home loans from banks in Dickinson recently, I discovered something odd.  Eventually I realized that there is an entirely different plan in place, that is unknown to 99.95% of the people in Dickinson.  The wealthiest 0.05% of the people in Dickinson, which includes the local Bank owners, have a completely different plan.

Despite what the business owners, property owners, property developers, Chambers of Commerce, oil industry spokespeople, and North Dakota government spokespeople are saying about the thousands of high paying job vacancies in the oil field in North Dakota currently, in order to try to keep the economy going, the Bank owners and the wealthiest 0.05% are preparing for an economic collapse.

When I and several of my friends were denied home loans recently by Banks, even though our income was sufficient to make the mortgage payments, and we had each been at our present jobs for more than four years, it was like the Banks were saying, “Even though you currently earn enough money to make the mortgage payments, and you have been at your present job for more than four years, we don’t believe that you will keep your job, or be able to get another job in Dickinson, and we don’t want to foreclose on a property that will be worth much, much less than your mortgage with the bank.”  In other words, the Banks are preparing for an economic collapse in Dickinson, where many people will lose their job, be unable to get another job, and property values will fall.

I began to realize that what the Bank owners know, what the wealthiest 0.05% of North Dakotans knew all along, was that these Oil Booms in North Dakota last about seven years.  You can make money on the way up, you can rent properties, lease properties, sell properties, build some properties and sell them, but you need to sell or hold during the way up, don’t buy anything, unless it is very early on.  The real money to be made, is when the economic collapse comes, then you can buy businesses, equipment, buildings, houses, and properties for 10% of what they cost.

The funny thing is, that the business people, business owners, property owners, property developers, Chambers of Commerce, oil industry spokespeople, and North Dakota government spokespeople, all believed that they had the same goal, were on the same page about growth, and keeping the economy going, when all along the wealthiest 0.05% of North Dakotans were just eagerly awaiting the economic collapse that was inevitable.

The business people, business owners, property owners, and property developers that were kind of the herders, shearers, fleecers, milkers, and egg gatherers of the ordinary working people, taking advantage of them and gouging them on rent, leases, and real estate, once the economy in Dickinson collapses, they will be broke or in a very bad financial position.  The wealthiest 0.05%, who knew this was coming years ago, have been waiting for this.

Business people, business owners, property owners, and property developers that once took advantage of other people, will then be taken advantage of.  Whatever they built, created, bought, or owned, they will end up losing it, and perhaps be paid 10% of what it cost them.

North Dakota Fish & Game Will Install A Tracking Collar On Your Daughter

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On November 9, 2018, the following bulletin was posted on the City of Dickinson, North Dakota Police Department Facebook page, and then this bulletin was repeatedly shared as many times as possible, as quickly as possible, by other Facebook users:

“DPD is asking for public assistance in locating three runaway juvenile females from Dickinson.  All three are suspected to be traveling together, and failed to show up for school this morning.

The juveniles are Athena xxxxxx, Madison xxxxxxxxx, and Tate xxxxxxxxx.”

I removed the last names of these three runaway juvenile females, though the City of Dickinson Police included their full names on this Be On The Lookout bulletin so that their friends, family, classmates, associates, and the public would know exactly which girls were missing, so that they could be found as quickly as possible.

What got many people in Dickinson even more worried, was when later that day the car that these three girls were travelling in, was found with a flat tire on the side of the interstate in Montana.  Many people lept to the conclusion that “somebody must have gotten them”, or that “the sex traffickers must have gotten them”.

By the end of the following day, all three of the runaway girls were back in Dickinson, no one had gotten them, and nothing bad had been done to them.  Upon their safe return to Dickinson, some Facebook commentors were making mention that they hoped that a serious ass whipping would follow, with a belt.  Yes, I agree, there should have been a serious ass whipping with a belt applied to each of these girls, not just because of what they did, but because they were too stupid to know what could have happened to them.

If you have a daughter like this, or if you suspect that you have a daughter like this, the North Dakota Fish & Game will attach a tracking collar to your daughter, according to the following schedule of fees:

2018 Schedule of Fees North Dakota Fish & Game, Juvenile Tracking Collar Program

  • Measure, Fit, and Affix Neck Tracking Collar……….$350 (one time fee)
  • Measure, Fit, and Affix Ankle Tracking Collar………$300 (one time fee)
  • Monthly Rental (non-event)…………………………..$100 monthly
  • Emergency Locate In-State……………………………$200 per request
  • Emergency Locate Out-of-State……………………….$300 per request

Optional Services

  • Monthly Charting & Mapping Report……………………..$100 monthly
  • Weighing & Measuring………………………………………$200 per request
  • Trapping & Tranquilizing……………………………………$300 per request

The reason why the North Dakota Fish & Game offers this program, is to provide a public service to North Dakotans, and to give new officers more experience in practices, procedures, and use of equipment.

Truth About The Work Situation In Dickinson, North Dakota

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In the past two weeks, I have written three blog posts about three different couples that I have seen moving out of the low rent older apartment building where I live in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota.  Each of these three couples had moved to Dickinson about six months ago, and now they are leaving Dickinson.

Every day there are radio advertisements from local companies in Dickinson about how they offer competitive wages, paid family health insurance, and $3,000 to $6,000 sign-on bonuses.  About once each week, there is a representative from North Dakota Job Services talking about hundreds of job openings in Williston, Watford City, and Dickinson.  Yet when I log on to the North Dakota Job Services website and I search for jobs in Williston, Watford City, and Dickinson, there are fewer than forty current job openings in each of these towns, and one third of them are for medical professionals.

What is really going on?  To explain, I want to write about an experience that I had yesterday on Saturday November 10, 2018, in Dickinson:

I went to a gas station in Dickinson that I normally do not go to.  Working at the cash register, was a man that I had worked with in Dickinson seven years ago, back in 2011.  He is about 6′-3″, 300 lb, able-bodied, fairly intelligent, and he is from Dickinson.

In 2011, this man was the operations manager for the small oil field service company where I worked.  He was in charge of the crew trucks, equipment trailers, skid steers, backhoe, scissor lifts, snorkel lifts, lull, generators, compressors, compactors, and other tools.  He operated equipment in the company yard, and at the job sites where we worked.

This company where we worked constructed pump jack concrete foundation pads at oil field locations, salt waters disposal facilities, steel warehouse buildings, and performed work at several different refineries.  The operations manager ordered material for the work that was performed, and he sometimes supervised the work that was performed.

The operations manager did a pretty good job over all.  He worked at this small oil field service company for several years, before going to work for a supplier of oil field tools and equipment for several years.

Why is this big, strong, able-bodied, fairly intelligent, competent, local person, with ten years of experience working in the oil field, working as a cashier at gas station in Dickinson, if there are supposed to be hundreds of job openings in Williston, Watford City, and Dickinson?

In my recent blog posts titled “The Truth About Living And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota”, “Truth And Lies About Living And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota”, and “Even More Truth And Lies About Living And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota”,  I have tried to explain that business people, property owners, property managers, and oil field companies are trying to “keep things going” by spreading false information.  They want to keep people moving to Dickinson to do business, so that the value of their properties remain high, to rent or lease properties, and to have a large pool of skilled labor in order to keep wages low.

Even More Truth And Lies About Living And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota

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Today, Saturday November 10, 2018, I am yet again watching a couple move out of the low rent older apartment building in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota where I live.  No, this is not an across town move, because they have a pickup truck and a U-haul trailer, and they are very carefully trying to fit absolutely everything they own into this truck and trailer, because they are leaving Dickinson.

In the past thirty days, I have written two previous blog posts about two other couples who were moving out of the older apartment building where I live in Dickinson.  Both the first couple, and the second couple, the husband was truck driver.  Both of these two couples moved to Dickinson about six months ago.

On the radio in Dickinson, North Dakota for the past several months, there have been advertisements from local trucking companies about how they need truck drivers, they offer competitive wages, paid family health insurance, and a $3,000 to $6,000 sign-on bonus.

Why is it that truck drivers come to Dickinson for work, then they leave about six months later?  No, they didn’t make so much money that they are leaving.  I talked to them, I saw how they were living, I saw that they had very little, I sometimes saw and heard these couples arguments that continued through the parking lot and into the building, the kind of arguments that people have when money is scarce.

Also on the radio in Dickinson during the past sixty days, I have heard representatives from North Dakota Job Service talk about the great need for workers in Williston, Watford City, and Dickinson, about several hundred job vacancies in Williston.  Yet when I log onto the North Dakota Job Services website, and search for job openings in Williston, Watford City, and Dickinson, I see that there are less than forty current job openings in Williston, and less than thirty current job openings in Watford City and Dickinson.  One third of these job openings are for Registered Nurses, Travel Nurses, and Medical Doctors, more job openings in the medical professions than there are in the oil field.

What is going on?  I know exactly what is going on, and what is happening.  Business owners, property owners, property managers, and oil companies want to “keep things going”.  The business owners want customers, the property owners want their property to continue to be worth money, the property managers want tenants, and the oil companies want to have a large pool of skilled trades people so that they can keep wages low, have the threat of easily replacing workers, and being able to replace skilled trades people like they were shop rags when they get worn out.

In my previous blog post, I found a short way to put it, if you are not from this area, you are treated like a migrant worker.  No matter if you have a college degree, management experience, or a great deal of work experience, if you are not from this area you are treated like a migrant worker.

What does this mean, being treated like a “migrant worker”?  It means that you will be followed more, stopped more, and treated with more scrutiny by the local city Police.  You are a good candidate for a DUI, a good source of revenue for the city when you pay your court fines, and how the local attorneys stay in business with the $3,000 retainer fee you will pay.

If you are not from this area, you will be treated like a migrant worker in many businesses, establishments, city, county, state, and federal offices in Dickinson.  At work, you will be disliked, mistrusted, mistreated, and undermined by your local co-workers, local administrators, local managers, and local company owners.

The truth is, that there are some job openings in Dickinson, and the wage rates are still above average, because no one wants to live or work in Dickinson.  The local people are unfriendly and hostile, the real estate prices are way too high, there is not a lot to do, there are very few places to go, and the local employers and the local co-workers treat out of state workers like shit.

More Truth And Lies About Living And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota

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About ten days ago, I wrote a blog post article about a poor truck driver and his wife moving out of the low rent downtown apartment building where I live in Dickinson, to return to the state where they came from.  When they moved in six months ago, back in May of 2018, they arrived with a thirty year old beat up car that they had borrowed from someone.  The only progress they made financially during the past six months was being able to buy a twenty-five year old beat up pickup truck for about $2,000.

During the more than one hour drive that I have to and from work, and while I am at work, each day I hear on FM radio stations advertisements for truck drivers wanted in Dickinson, North Dakota, where the companies are offering sign-on bonuses of $3,000 to $6,000, and family health insurance plans.

How can it be, that even though this truck driver neighbor of mine worked long hours and I hardly ever saw him, how could this be that he and his wife were so poor?  How could this be that when he lost his truck driving job in October, he was unable to get another truck driving job and had to return to the state where he came from?

This same exact thing that I saw happening ten days ago, where this truck driver and his wife who arrived here six months ago were moving out of the apartment building where I live in Dickinson, happened again two days ago.  Another couple who arrived here six months ago, where the husband drives truck, they are moving to Bismarck.

I ask the readers to please stop and think about this, every day I hear on FM radio around Dickinson, advertisements from several different trucking companies about their immediate need for experienced truck drivers, where they offer competitive wages, anywhere from a $3,000 to $6,000 sign on bonus, and family health insurance plans.  Why do poor truck drivers from out of state move here with their wives and belongings into the least expensive apartment they can find, to take a truck driving job in Dickinson, never appear to get ahead, and then leave Dickinson after six months?

These truck drivers leave Dickinson because they were lied to, and were misled.  All out of state workers who arrive in Dickinson are treated like shit, both at work, and outside of work.  If you are not from Dickinson, you are treated like a migrant worker.  You will not receive fair treatment, or good treatment, the whole time you are here.

The companies in Dickinson, the Chamber of Commerce, and North Dakota job service will continue to put people on the radio talking about the great need for workers, the shortage of workers, and that companies are desperate for workers.  Yes, they do need workers, because they treat everyone like shit, and they leave.  This is why people will not come back to Dickinson to work.

The Tragedy Of Dave’s Auto Repair In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I am a big believer in taking Fords to the Ford Dealer, Dodges to the Dodge Dealer, and Toyotas to the Toyota Dealer.  The mechanics in each of these dealerships have worked on hundreds of F150s, Ram 1500s, and Toyota trucks.  These mechanics have done the repair that you need on your particular model vehicle, dozens of times.  They know the easy way to do it, without damaging anything else, and the additional parts that can’t help being damaged that will have to be replaced too.

I also like the fact that service departments which are part of a car dealership have so much assets, that if a repair is ever done incorrectly which requires it to be redone or results in damage to your vehicle, they can afford to redo the repair or compensate you for the damage done to your vehicle.  They practically have to handle an incorrect repair in the most customer friendly way in order to maintain a good overall reputation.

I estimate that in the past six years in Dickinson, North Dakota, I have spent $2,000 at the Ford Dealer, $1,500 at the Dodge Dealer, and $1,200 at the Toyota Dealer getting vehicle repairs done.  The work was done well or just O.K., but it was expensive.

My Ford F150 for instance, the heater core had a hole in it, and the entire dashboard needed to be removed in order to replace the heater core.  A repair garage in Idaho, and the Ford Dealer in Dickinson both read to me the man-hour estimate for removing and reinstalling the entire dashboard, and it was something like eight hours.  Because of the large number of hours, and the high hourly shop rate at the Ford Dealer in Dickinson, this repair cost me about $1,200.

My Dodge 1500 for instance, the headlight switch quit working.  The Dodge Dealer mechanic said that he had done this light switch repair many times, and that it wasn’t just a matter of replacing this switch, the wiring harness plug for this switch was notorious for melting, and he was able to show me on my truck that this wiring harness plug had in fact melted.  In order to splice on a new wiring plug onto the wiring harness, it required the dashboard to be removed and reinstalled, and this repair cost me $500 due to the amount of man-hours and the high hourly shop rate at the Dodge Dealer in Dickinson.

At the Toyota Dealer Service Department in Dickinson, not only did I look at their nice looking women employees in their service department, and their nice looking customer women who were waiting for their vehicles to be repaired or serviced, I wrote about it.  I may not be very welcome in the Toyota Dealership Service Department in Dickinson, so for this reason, and for the reason of the car dealership service departments being so expensive, I needed to find a good, less expensive, independent mechanic in Dickinson.

In the past several years in Dickinson, a few local people had recommended Dave’s Auto Repair to me.  This repair garage is located behind Runnings, in the same building as the car wash, which has the large sign that reads “Four Seasons Auto”.  I had stopped at this garage once before when they had a Lexus for sale.  It was an inexpensive Lexus, but the paint on the hood, roof, and trunk had its clear coat worn away, and the paint was beginning to oxidize, and at the time I needed a nicer looking vehicle with no oxidized paint.

About a year ago, the engine oil pressure gauge quit working most of the time on my Dodge 1500 truck.  This didn’t bother me too much, because there was still a low oil pressure warning light that was separate from the oil pressure gauge.  Three months ago, 35 miles into my drive on the way to work, the low oil pressure warning light came on in my Dodge 1500 truck.  I pulled off the side of the road, added one quart of engine oil, started the truck, and the low oil pressure warning light did not come back on for the rest of the drive to work.

In the following days, the low oil pressure warning light on my Dodge 1500 truck came on, and stayed on.  Me, and two of my co-workers doubted that there was no oil pressure in this truck, my two co-workers said that it was most likely a bad oil pressure sensor sending unit.  One of my co-workers who I had worked with for almost a year, who was very practical, level headed, and cheap, recommended Dave’s Auto Repair in Dickinson very highly.  He said that he had been taking all of his vehicles, even his new vehicles to Dave’s Auto Repair for the past fifteen years.

My co-worker explained to me that Dave, the owner, did the work, along with his two sons.  He said that Dave was very honest, and very reasonable on the cost of car repairs.  In a few days I went and met Dave to make an appointment to have my Dodge 1500 engine oil pressure tested, and then replace the oil pressure sensor sending unit if it was faulty.

When the work was done on my Dodge 1500 truck in approximately August of 2018, Dave’s son did the repair, and I talked to him a little bit when I came to pick up my truck and pay for the repair which cost about $150.  I had met Dave’s son a couple of years ago when I went there to see about the Lexus which they had for sale.  This repair to my Dodge truck was fine, it didn’t cost that much, and I liked Dave and his son.  I planned on getting a lot more work done at Dave’s Auto Repair, especially getting the front drive shaft CV joints and seals replaced on this Dodge 1500 truck.

In September, I believe it was, I was getting my hair cut in a barber shop, when a young man came in and said to the barber that he had to get his van off of the garage property by the end of the day, because they were having an auction at the garage the following day.  The barber asked this young man if he was buying his father’s tools, and this young man said something like he would have bought them prior to the auction or he didn’t want to bid on them at the auction, because he wanted the auction to bring as much money as possible.

I thought about what this young man and the barber were talking about, it seemed like this young man’s family’s repair garage or service company was unexpectedly going out of business, which was very sad, because this young man was employed at this business.  He might have expected to own and operate this business one day, or be employed there for the rest of his life, but that wasn’t going to happen now.

After he left, I asked the barber what was going on, and he said that Dave’s Auto Repair was closing, and that they were auctioning off all of their tools and equipment.  I misunderstood what the barber said, because I thought that there was no way that the repair garage that I had just gone to was going out of business.  I said, you are not talking about Dave’s Auto Repair behind Runnings, at the car wash?  And the barber replied, that yes he was.

I couldn’t believe this, what were Dave and his two sons going to do now?  Hadn’t he been in business at that location for something like twenty years?  I telephoned my co-worker who had recommended this garage, who had been taking all of his vehicles there for fifteen years.  My co-worker said that he and a bunch of people that he knew asked Dave what was going on.  My co-worker heard from his friends, that the owner of the building where Dave had his garage, had told Dave that he was going to triple his rent.  Dave supposedly said to the owner of this building, that there was no way that he could make enough money to stay in business if he tripled his rent, so that he would have to close his business.

I was very sorry to hear this, and my co-worker said that he and his friends were all going to go over to the owner of this building where he lived and drag him out of his house, but Dave would not tell them where he lived.  This is very, very typical and well known in Dickinson, that the greed of the property owners is so great, that they expect successful business owners to hand over most of their money to them, so that as business owners they would be left with about $10 per hour to pay themselves.

Now Dickinson no longer has one of the most honest and reasonable independent repair garages in town.  Dave no longer has the satisfaction and freedom of being self employed, running his own business, and providing a good place to work for his two sons.  His two sons no longer have the pride, security, and future of working in a successful family run business.  All because of the evil greed of the property owners in Dickinson.

I Wanted To Name My Cat After Dan Porter

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On Monday, October 22, I pulled a six week old Siamese kitten out of the engine of a new Ford F350 pickup truck at the job site where I was working.  The driver of this truck did not want this kitten, and she said that she lived next door to a bar where there were a lot of stray kittens.

At the time, I was sure that this kitten was going to scratch and bite me, struggle and get away from me, so I put it on the front seat of my Jeep Cherokee and I shut the door.  I didn’t want it to get loose on the job site, because it was dangerous, it would get run over, and there were several packs of coyotes that lived close to this job site, they came through every night and they would eat this six week old kitten.

I realized that this kitten hadn’t tried to scratch or bite me, or tried to get away.  It sat calmly in the driver’s seat where I put it, and later it went and sat on the center console.  When I got off work and was driving back to Dickinson where I live, about half way through this more than one hour drive, this kitten climbed up the sleeve of my sweatshirt and it sat on my shoulder, looking out the window for the rest of the drive home.

I had to stop at the Family Dollar store to buy cat litter, a litter box, cat food, and cat food bowls.  I had gotten a cardboard box out of the dumpster at the job site before I left, and I carried this kitten up to my apartment in this cardboard box.  I put this kitten in the bathroom with the litter box, some water, and some cat food.  When I checked on it an hour later, it had eaten its food, drank some water, and it had pooped in the litter box.

I left the bathroom door open, and the kitten walked out to the living room and it did a little bit of exploring. Then it climbed up the lazy boy chair where I was sitting, and onto my shoulder where it sat for a while purring, then it climbed to the top of the back of the chair and went to sleep.

Early in the morning, about an hour before I had to wake up to go to work, the kitten came into the bedroom where I was sleeping, and it lay on top of my head on the pillows behind my head.  In order to turn over, I had to give up my pillows to the cat.

When I was driving to work that morning, and when I was at work that day, I was thinking that I wanted to keep this kitten, that it would be good company.  It seemed to be a particularly good and well behaved cat.  It didn’t try to scratch or bite me, get away from me, panic and go crazy in the car, or run around my apartment getting into everything.  And it was a big relief that it didn’t hesitate to go use the litter box several times, rather than pee or poop on the floor.

I was thinking about what to name this cat, it appeared to be a male.  I didn’t want to stick it with some stupid name, that would adversely affect its personality and the way people treated it.  I thought about what qualities and characteristics this cat had, and a fitting name based on these things.  After several hours, I decided to name it after Dan Porter.

Dan Porter, for those of you who don’t know, owns a Toyota/Honda car dealership in Dickinson, North Dakota, and he has financially supported many community projects and charity events.

So I decided to name this cat Dan Porter, but in order to not confuse this cat by using two names, I would have to say it as one word, Danporter.  For example, “Danporter leave that electrical cord alone!”

Now, when I took this cat to the veterinarian to get shots, I would tell them that the name of this cat was Dan Porter, and that he was a Methodist.  That way, he would get more respect and better medical treatment, because they would think that he was somehow related to Dan Porter, and I wouldn’t tell them anything different.

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But once I got home from work on Tuesday, this cat acted very, very bad climbing up my back many times while I was eating, and later scratching and biting me when I was already mad at it and trying to sleep.  So I don’t know what I am going to name this cat now, because this doesn’t act like Dan Porter.

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Mormon Missionary Women Caused Me To Replace My Toilet Seat

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I moved into an older apartment building in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota about 1-1/2 years ago.  It wasn’t until a couple of years after the North Dakota oil boom ended in 2015 that real estate prices and rental prices began to fall to where I could afford to rent an apartment in Dickinson.

The older apartments, in the older downtown neighborhoods were less sought after than the newly constructed modern apartments on the outskirts of the City of Dickinson.  I was trying to find absolutely the least expensive apartment, because I am just here in Dickinson to work, I have a home back in Idaho with most of my belongings.  I found a studio apartment for $350 per month which was fine with me, and I said that I would take it, until the landlord showed me a two-bedroom apartment for not much more money.

I guessed that the landlord didn’t want me to get sick of living in the studio apartment, and try to find some place else to live, or shoot myself in the head.  He was right in a way, it would have been kind of embarrassing and depressing at times, when the reality set in that I was living in a studio apartment in Dickinson, North Dakota, and wondering why I was even alive.

I moved into a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment, which I liked very much.  It was a pretty large apartment, but it did not have a fancy kitchen or bathroom, which was O.K. with me.  Not long after I moved in, the toilet seat broke in half, because it was old and made out of pressed wood particles.  I found out very quickly, that sitting on this toilet seat after it had broken in half, that it would pinch the back side of my upper legs so bad, that it would almost cause you to go to the emergency room to get stitches.

I happened to have a small amount of white duct tape in my belongings, which I thought would be a good temporary fix for this toilet seat.  I didn’t have a lot of white duct tape left, so I didn’t fix this toilet seat very well, and it was still dangerous.  I bought a new toilet seat about two weeks later, but it sat in the hallway outside the bathroom for about a year, because I didn’t feel like changing it.

Meanwhile, the Mormon missionaries seemed to target the building that I lived in, for spreading the gospel according to Joseph Smith.  For one thing, they had accomplished a successful conversion of a strange couple of Hispanic men who lived across the hallway from me.  I say that these Hispanic men were strange, because they were both very feminine acting, and they lived together.

As these two Hispanic men were being converted and brought into the Mormon Church, it appeared that part of the process was to get them to leave this building, because it was a bad, unwholesome environment.  At the time, there was a lot of illegal drug use and drug dealing in the building where I lived, and I didn’t blame the Mormon Church for wanting to get these two young men out of this building, because it was dangerous, a bad environment, and a bad influence.

When these two Hispanic men were ready to leave, they were talking about wanting to get out because of the illegal drug use, and drug dealing in this apartment building.  There was even a drug dealer who lived right across the hallway from them.  Wait a minute, I live directly across the hallway from them, were they talking about me?

Out on the street outside of the building where I live, I had spoken to different sets of Mormon missionaries who patrolled the downtown neighborhood.  I told them that I lived near Idaho Falls Idaho which is about 70% Mormon.  This area of Idaho is very important to the Mormon Church because of the high number overall of Mormons, the high percentage of Mormons, the huge Mormon Temple there, and BYU Idaho being not far from there.

If Salt Lake City is like the Washington D.C. of the LDS Church, the Idaho Falls area is like the Atlanta or New York City of the LDS Church.  When Mormon Missionaries get sent on their mission to Idaho Falls, it is kind of a joke inside of the LDS Church, because it is already the highest percentage Mormon of any place in the United States.

In that area of eastern Idaho, I had met and talked to many Mormon business owners, citizens, and missionaries.  I discussed religion with the Mormons, especially the missionaries, and I even went to several church services in the LDS Church.  What was the end for me, where I could not go any further, was when at a church  service, one of the Mormon men read a passage, “Just as God evolved, we too can evolve to become like God, and be gods of our own planet one day.”  I asked, and no they weren’t kidding.

Because I quit going to the Mormon Church, and I explained to them that I could not go along with the belief that we could evolve to become like God, and become gods of our own planet one day, I became not a favored person in eastern Idaho.  And because I had two Mercedes, two Porsches, a Jaguar, a Jeep, a lifted black Dodge Truck, and a hot young Hispanic girlfriend who was a drug addict, I guess that made me a drug dealer as far as the Mormon Church was concerned.

Now, in addition to the Mormon missionaries having had some success in talking to and converting people who live in the building where I live, they seemed to want to talk to me too.  I don’t mind talking to them, I just have not had time to talk to them.  In the past several months, there have been groups of two or three young Mormon missionary women who have asked me if I wanted to talk to them while I was out on the street, but I have just not had the time.

I would like to talk to the young Mormon missionary women for several reasons:  One, there is a shortage of women in Dickinson, and the women who are here are fat, overweight, glaring, scowling, mean, and nasty;  Two, Mormon missionary women are pleasant, presentable, courteous, and soft spoken;  Three, I like the guts, determination, and fearlessness of the young Mormon missionary women;  Four, I want to hear where they are from, and what their plans are in life.

About one month ago, I had my apartment window open in the afternoon while I was laying in bed trying to take a nap, when I heard the pleasant voices of young women in the parking lot.  These were not the voices that I normally hear, of the foul-mouthed, uncouth, trashy, low class drug addict women who live in the building, these were the voices of unruined women.

I got up out of bed and I looked out the window, I said to myself, “Shit, it’s the Mormon women, I hope they aren’t coming in the building, I hope that they aren’t coming up here.”  I wasn’t going to let them in my apartment.  I was in my underwear, and my apartment wasn’t clean, it was a mess.  God forbid they would get in my apartment, and one of them would ask to use the bathroom, and that broken toilet seat would wreak havoc on their ass.  They are not old, tough, and muscular like me, on their soft behinds, that toilet seat would be like a bear trap.

A few weeks later, the young Mormon missionary women came knocking on my apartment door, and I wouldn’t let them in, because I wasn’t prepared for visitors, and I was scared of one of them getting hurt on my toilet seat.  What would have been just as bad, was one of the young Mormon women talking to me and suddenly realizing that she needed to use the bathroom, and me telling her that she couldn’t use it.

Finally, I went ahead and changed the toilet seat, just for the sake of the young Mormon missionary women not getting their bottom severely pinched, which in their mind would be like a sin or carry some kind of extra shame.

The Reality Of Living In Dickinson Versus The Lies

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On this blog website, I have tried again, and again, to explain the reality of living in Dickinson, North Dakota, versus the lies.

Right now, today, there are advertisements and announcements on the radio about truck driving jobs in Dickinson, Watford City, and Williston with “paid benefits, housing provided, $3,000 sign-on bonus, and $6,000 sign-on bonus”.  Yes, there are some truck driving jobs in Dickinson, Watford City, and Williston, but it is not like what is advertised or claimed.  I want to give a recent, real life example.

In the Spring of 2018, at the older, low rent apartment building where I live in downtown Dickinson, there was a couple in their late twenties who moved into my building.  This man and woman, appeared to be kind of poor, they drove a thirty year old luxury car that was worn out, with the rear suspension sagging.  Later, it was found out, that this wasn’t even their car, it had been lent to them.

Everyone in the building remembers this couple moving in, because they made a fuss about someone being parked in “their parking space”, which caused at least a year long mutual agreement and understanding of the residents to be messed up, and a chain reaction of squabbles.

Mathematically, there are not enough parking spaces in front of the building for each apartment to have one parking space, without even considering that some apartments have two drivers and two vehicles.  It came to be understood and established, that the mothers with children, and the women who were less mobile, had their usual spot where they parked their car in front of the building, and the men, who typically drove pickup trucks and were able-bodied parked on the street.  It was a very practical arrangement, that worked very well, until this new young couple demanded “their parking space”, which then caused everyone to end up parking in someone else’s customary space.

This couple was from out of state, and the husband was a truck driver.  I never saw very much of the husband, because he was always working.  After about two months of living in this building, this couple bought a twenty-five year old Chevy pickup truck that was beat up, and they gave back the thirty year old luxury car that had been lent to them.

I remember this husband and wife fighting and squabbling some, on a regular basis, with their arguments and hostility being carried or continued into the parking lot, and hallways.  Car doors slamming, shouting, yelling, fighting between the two of them about the other one not doing what they wanted, needed, or were supposed to do.

With their beat up truck, shabby, dirty, cheap clothing, and tired appearance, the husband always seemed to be coming from the position of working hard, working long hours, and the wife not doing what she was supposed to do, or not understanding that they didn’t have money.  And the wife was disappointed and unhappy about everything, where they lived, what they had, and her not getting what she wanted.

This past week, five or six months after this couple moved into my building downtown, they are moving out.  The husband lost his truck driving job, and they are returning to the state where they came from.  All by himself, this poor, tired, worn out truck driver was carrying all the beat up old furniture from their apartment, and piling it in the back of their beat up $2,000 truck.  The wife was no where to be seen, it looks like she split, too much disappointment and humiliation for her.

This husband was hardly ever home, because he was out driving tractor trucks.  With the supposed high demand for truck drivers, high rate of pay, $3,000 to $6,000 sign on bonuses, why are people like this couple so poor?  Why was the husband let go?  Why did they have to pay for their own apartment?  Why couldn’t the husband easily go get another truck driving job with a $3,000 to $6,000 sign on bonus, and housing provided?

I have lived in Dickinson, North Dakota for a little over six years now.  What business owners, business organizations, and politicians claim, is a bunch of bullshit, hype, and propaganda which benefits them:  To keep people coming here to rent apartments, rent homes, buy homes, keep real estate prices up, keep businesses going, to have an overabundance of labor, in order to keep labor pay rates low.

If you are from out of state and you come here, you may be able to get a job, but you will not be treated very well because you are not from here, you will be undermined by your local co-workers, not valued by your local company owner, used like migrant laborers, and let go.  You may be able to pay your bills while you are here, but you will not get ahead financially unless you live almost like a homeless person or Mexican migrant worker to try to save some money.

I Almost Killed This Cat

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Yesterday evening at work, I pulled a six week old Siamese kitten out of a truck engine.  The driver of the truck did not want this kitten, and she said that she lived next door to a bar, that had a lot of stray cats outside, that she didn’t think that this kitten belonged to anyone.

I wrote in yesterday’s blog post that this kitten didn’t try to scratch or bite me, and I put it in my Jeep Cherokee while I continued to work.  This work site was not a safe place to let this kitten go, there are several packs of coyotes nearby, that come onto the site every night.  After work, halfway through the long drive back to Dickinson where I live, this kitten climbed up my sweatshirt sleeve, it sat on my shoulder fairly still, and it looked out the window at the sights.

I stopped at the Family Dollar store to buy cat litter, a litter box, cat food, and cat food bowls.  I put this kitten in my apartment bathroom with a bowl of water, some cat food, and the litter box.  When I checked on this kitten after about an hour, it had eaten all of its food, drank some water, and it had used the litter box.  I was glad that it knew how to use the litter box.

At the apartment building where I live, pets are not allowed.  I didn’t know how or if I was going to be able to keep this kitten.  When I let it out of the bathroom, it explored the apartment some, but it didn’t go crazy running around everywhere and getting into everything.  It came and sat on top of the back of my lazy boy chair where I was sitting, and it went to sleep for several hours.

Later that first night, this kitten came and sat on top of my head and the pillows where I was sleeping, which caused me to give up my pillows.  Like I wrote yesterday, I have to get up at 3:30 a.m. because I have a long drive to work far outside of Dickinson.  When I got up, this kitten started meowing loudly, so I gave it some more cat food.  I didn’t want this kitten to keep meowing so loudly that the neighbors would hear him.

When I left my apartment at 4:15 a.m., I left this kitten out in the living room rather than shutting him in the bathroom or a spare bedroom where he could do less damage, because if he were confined in a room he might meow all morning and cause the neighbors to complain to the apartment building manager.

Today, driving to work and while I was at work, I thought that I wanted to try to keep this kitten, he was so well behaved, so little trouble, that I thought he would be good company.  I thought of a name for him, and I looked forward to seeing him when I got home.

I didn’t leave work until 6:15 p.m., and I didn’t get back into Dickinson until a little after 7:30 p.m.  I stopped to pick up some carry-out food, I had not eaten all day.  Remember, I left home to go to work at 4:15 a.m., and I was not getting home from work until after 7:30 p.m., that’s fifteen hours later.

When I got back to my apartment and went inside, I could see that the kitten had used his litter box, and he was sitting on the back of the lazy boy chair.  Everything appeared to be fine, but he started meowing very loudly, so I had to stop what I was doing and feed him first to get him to shut up.  I don’t want to get kicked out of my apartment and have to move because the neighbors complain that I have a cat.

When I sat down to eat, finally, the kitten climbed up my back to play around on my shoulders and on top of my head.  This was funny the first time, the second time, and the third time, but by the fourth time and the fifth time, I was getting tired of it because I was hungry, I was trying to eat, I was tired, and I was becoming angry from the nuisance and getting clawed again and again.  I thought about putting the kitten in the bathroom or the spare bedroom, but he would start meowing so loudly that I would have to let him out right away.

Soon, I was angry enough to where I was about to throw this kitten as hard as I could against the wall, in order to make it not exist anymore.  No more worry about the neighbors hearing loud meowing, getting evicted from my apartment, the work of having to move and carry everything out of my two-bedroom apartment, and find a new apartment.  No more having to deal with this kitten, getting woken up by it, having to feed it, having it get in the way of my dinner.

I was sorry that I was so angry from this kitten that I wanted to kill it.  I put my food away, and I went to bed.  I thought that I had better try to call the Oreo animal rescue people tomorrow to try give them this kitten.  The kitten sat out in the living room for about an hour.  I didn’t shut the bedroom door, because the kitten would just start meowing loudly.

After about an hour, the kitten came into my bedroom, and began climbing on me and biting me for about an hour.  Ever since I was a kid, I had cats, and I can not ever remember a cat or a kitten even trying once to climb up my back when I was eating, or climbing onto my bed and trying to bite and scratch me for an hour when I was trying to sleep.

I couldn’t believe how bad this kitten was acting, it was such a change from yesterday.  After he had eaten a lot of cat food, had a safe place to stay, and had gotten some rest, he was the worst cat ever.

The Kitten That I Brought Home

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I have to get up in the morning at 3:30 a.m., because I have a long drive to work, at an industrial site far away from Dickinson, North Dakota where I live.  For the first nine months of this particular work assignment, there were very few people at this site, which is located out in the middle of nowhere.

Several years ago, all of the wildlife in the area realized that there was no hunting on this industrial site.  There was no hunting allowed on this location, because of the risk of damage being done to the equipment by any stray bullets.  Several herds of deer, several packs of coyotes, several foxes, dozens of rabbits, a handful of feral cats, many pheasants, some badgers, and even a wolverine, yes a wolverine, began living at this location.

Not only did all these wild animals move to this location, these wild animals began to have a certain amount of trust towards me and my few fellow co-workers.  In fact, some animals like the pheasants, actually preferred to stay close to where we were, sensing that neither the hunters nor the coyotes would come after them when we were around.  Some of the rabbits would come within three or four feet of us while they were eating grass, believing that the coyotes, owls, eagles and other predators would not try to get them when we were there.

When me or my other co-workers did not want to finish eating the food that we had, we would leave the leftover food in a certain spot for the feral cats.  I felt very bad for the feral cats, they were skinny and not in very good physical condition.  The feral cats did not have any place warm to go when it got to be -10, -20, -30 degrees Fahrenheit.  I felt that at least they could have our leftover food in the Winter.

Late this Summer, everything changed at this industrial site where I work.  There were so many workers, that the rules had to change.  Every day now, there are a couple of safety specialists, and environmental specialists at this site, who are there to monitor and observe everything that goes on.  Their instructions to me, were that me and my co-workers could no longer feed the feral cats, as this would be considered interfering with the native wildlife.

What was even more upsetting to me, was that some of the new workers actually started doing mean things to the feral cats, rabbits, and pheasants on site, to the animals that used to have a certain amount of trust towards the people who worked on this site, that they weren’t going to harm them, and that they were protected.  I am not going to dwell on this at the moment, it is just a fact that some North Dakotans get enjoyment out of hurting and killing animals like cats, prairie dogs, rabbits, pheasants, and deer.

I like cats, but I can’t really have a cat, because pets are not allowed in the apartment building where I live, and I am really just here in North Dakota temporarily for work.  I left a cat back home at my house in Idaho, and I paid the neighbor to feed him, but supposedly he got run over by a car.  I felt bad that I pretty much nearly abandoned this cat in Idaho, but I wanted him to be able to stay on his five acres of land, and I paid a neighbor to feed him, which I felt was the best that I could do for him.

I would like to have a cat, but I shouldn’t have one.  Today at work, at 4:30 p.m, I heard a radio announcement that a lottery jackpot has now grown to $1.5 billion.  I thought to myself, if I won this lottery jackpot, and a reporter asked me what I was going to do with all of this money, I would say, “I am going to get a cat, and then a girlfriend.”

At 5:15 p.m. today, one of the worker’s wives drove up to the site entrance in a new Ford F350 pickup truck.  I walked over to her to ask her if she was here to pick someone up, and she said yes, her husband.  I could barely hear her, because there was this cat screaming Meow!, Meow!, Meow!  I said to this lady, do you have a cat in your truck, and she said no.  I said pop the hood, and she didn’t know what I was talking about, but I knew there was a cat stuck up in the truck engine.

I went and got my work gloves because I was sure I was going to get bit and scratched, I pulled the hood release, undid the hood safety latch, and told her to turn off the truck engine while I went digging for this cat, it was under the air cleaner box.  Within about thirty seconds, a six week old kitten climbed out from behind the radiator, and I grabbed him.

This woman, her husband, and some of the other workers thought that this was funny, it appeared that they did not dislike cats.  I asked her about where she lived, to try to determine if this was one of her neighbor’s cats.  She said, no, she lived next door to a bar, where there were a lot of homeless cats.  I asked her and her husband if they wanted this cat, and they said no, not really.

I put this six week old kitten, which appeared to be a Siamese cat, on the front seat of my Jeep Cherokee, because I was not off duty yet.  If it pissed and pooped in my Jeep, this Jeep only cost me $500, so it was not that big a deal.  It sat down on the center console, and behaved pretty well.  Also, it had not tried to bite me or scratch me.

Ordinarily, I would have just put this cat on the ground and let it go.  But for one thing, this was not a cat, it was only a six week old kitten.  Second, some of the workers on this location were doing mean things to the feral cats, rabbits, and pheasants.  Third, the coyotes, the wolverine, an owl, an eagle, or other predator would have gotten this kitten this very night.

I don’t know what I am going to do with this kitten.  I would like to keep him, because he is pretty well behaved.  Halfway back to Dickinson, he came out of hiding, climbed up my arm onto my shoulder, and sat on my shoulder quietly all the way back to Dickinson and through town, just looking out the window.

I put him in my bathroom with a litter box, some water, and some cat food for about an hour when I first got home.  He drank some water, ate all of his food, and he pooped in the litter box.  So, I don’t have to worry as much as I thought I would about him using the litter box.

Here is a short video of him, he didn’t stay in this basket long: