All I want for Christmas is some BANDWIDTH!

Hello my blogger friends. I have SOOOOOOOOOOO much to share about my new adventure and so many pictures to upload but unfortunately, picture-free posts are what you're going to get for a while. I had to buy an air card today from AT&T just so I could stop sending e-mails from my iPhone (which is amazing in itself but my fingers are tired of that cramped keyboard). The card works great but I've noticed that uploading is a little slow, and also air cards do not provide unlimited usage and I have to keep my downloads and uploads to a minimum so as not to incur exorbitant monthly charges.

I've been here in Williston, ND for one week and one day. We've been living in our house (mobile home) for 3 nights. We've only had hot water for 1 day. We've had cold running water for 2 days and we still don't have a properly functioning sewer system. I have no idea where one is supposed to put trash in this place and I'm getting a little tired of burying the kid's do in the yard. (Oh yes I did!) But we have a place to sleep and it's got heat which is a HUGE blessing considering we still didn't know where we were going to live when we left NC.

I've been researching internet here and at my location I cannot get anything faster than basic DSL which is probably fine for most people. However, I've been living a plush bandwidth life for some time as we had the very fastest broadband connection we could get while living in NC. DSL seems a lot like dial-up to me in comparison to what I had. I know... snob right? Well some DSL might be ok if it weren't going to be a minimum of a MONTH before I can get it. So I'll just pay for my meager 3G internet connection in the meantime, thank-you very much.

We are so very glad to be here finally though, despite the fact that Dad actually does work at LEAST 12 hour days EVERY day except Sunday. Just knowing we're all in the same 10 mile radius really does make it nicer. I certainly haven't been any less busy since being here though. There's all this unpacking and reorganization taking place. I hate moving into a new place and trying to figure out how you are going to make all your stuff work. Moving from a 5 bedroom house to a 3 bedroom single-wide is difficult even if I did leave a LOT of stuff behind. Nevertheless, the place is larger AND nicer than I expected which is a plus.

This place (Williston, ND) is absolutely fascinating. I really feel like I must be on some other planet sometimes. The pace of life here is so much faster. Everyone is in a hurry and every place of business is busy. It's amazing to me how drastically different the overall feel of it is. In NC, (and out of NC), I knew so many people out of work. I knew so many businesses slumping under economic recession. Life for many seemed to crawl along. People were barely making it and many getting laid off. It's strange that all of that is still happening when all around me there are people working at ALL hours of the day, through the holiday and every business having a "Now Hiring"sign outside. There is such a need for things to be done NOW NOW NOW! There's a waiting list for EVERYTHING and there's no real answer on WHEN things will get done.
I have to tell you though, that the most fascinating thing to me is that despite the rush and lack of available service, everyone is absolutely PLEASANT. You'd think that people, not really being worried about whether they can keep their job, and knowing how many other jobs are out there, would take the opportunity to be total slackers and not care in the least about customer service. That just isn't the case though. EVERYONE I have dealt with in a business fashion  has been SO nice and SO helpful and so HAPPY. It's not just customer service. It's the lady in Wal-Mart who assures me over and over "Oh it's fine! Don't you worry about it in the least!" when I apologize for my children being painfully unaware of the inconvenience they are causing her by not moving out of the way. It's the fact that I'm sitting at a green light for a good minute because I'm not paying attention and NOBODY honks at me to get my butt moving. It's the guy who definitely looks like he works outdoors on a drilling rig (it's 20 degrees and snowing) telling me to go ahead of him in line because Iyov's acting like a nut-job and I just want to get him away from the public ASAP. I don't think I have encountered a single person who is sour, in a bad mood, or just plain tired the entire time I've been here. I haven't observed any cross words between anyone in a store or elsewhere.
It's kind of weird. But it's pretty much wonderful and refreshing and it makes my day every time I get to see people be nice to each other for no reason at all.
Yeah, I think I might kind of like this crazy place.

Comments

  1. what is brad actually doing for those 12 hours? i'm pretty sure he didn't have oil rigging on his resume.

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  2. Haha! No. He did, however, have CAT warehouse experience on his resume from a summer job in college. So yeah, he works in a CAT store and he sits at the desk taking orders...figures out the logistics of getting parts out to rigs, sometimes taking them there himself. He stays busy ALL DAY LONG!

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