The Montanan's problem with outsiders moving in.. (Billings, Bozeman: credit, homes)

[Timberwolf232]

You know, the more and more this and other threads move, the more I think I might see just a little bit more of the big picture...

All of us have something in common. We are all trying to make our way the best we can.

MySerendipity:

There are plenty of places with services, some are newer, and some have been that way. If you move out here, you may slide off the road in the winter and hit the ditch, and maybe someone will help yank your vehicle out of there.
Takes a while to get used to it for some, but you do get used to it.

I've driven on the snow and ice all of my life except for a few years when I was in the service or traveling and have spent lots and lots of time digging out tires!.
I'm not trying to scare anyone off. (well maybe just a little bit.. ) I just hope that people realize that they can't change nature... whenever we humans try to make the earth work the way we think we need out of conveinance, (I know I'm a horrible speller) something comes up and bites us in the butt.
Most of the people that move here and work for a living understand that and really try to live happy, not out of a drive for wealth or recognition, but just to be happy.

I guess all I'm trying to say is, if anyone decides to make the move, just try to really get to know all of what is around you, don't try to change it, but try to live happy with whats already there.

Jarsmom:

I think you are right also.. There has been a lot of lazy, vindictive people here, and as a state, we haven't done a good enough job caring for our Montana, (and the rest of the rocky mountain areas) and now we are seeing what happens when we let things slide.

Hope that makes sense..

[jimj]

A little further on what Jarsmom said about what I see as gossipy people. You do have to grow a thick skin here, people gossip especially in the smaller towns (smaller than Kalispell) and you have to be able to not care. We've been here for several years, have some very close friends and many "aquaintences" who we know smile to our face but gossip behind our backs.
I think it's a time and population thing, when we lived in CA and other big cities we didn't really have time to worry what the neighbors were doing much less sit around and gossip about the people we knew. If something happened with someone we knew that we really didn't agree with we just didn't see them anymore, period. We had soooo much going on and there are so many people we didn't need to use gossip as a time filler or activity.
We've gotten to the point now where we do what we do and if the wagging tongues don't like it, well, that's just too bad. They don't have to pay my bills or live in my house so it's really none of their beeswax anyway.
I would suggest reading the local papers online, including the letters to the editor and police logs to give you some idea of what goes on here and what "some" think.
If you come here be comfortable with yourself and understand that you will be spending more time with your family than other people so they're the ones you need to keep happy, eventually you'll gain some friends and the ones who aren't, well who really cares anyway?
All you need to take care of is your own little "sphere", don't get caught up in the gossip tree (people will try and draw you in and then cap on you for doing it) and you'll be fine.

[rickers]

Many people will get a scanner and illegally program the easily available cordless and cell phone codes. Then they can listen in on their neighbors private phone conversations and then go blabbing your business all over town !

[MySerendipity]

Wow! Good to know. That would drive me crazy, Hate gossip. I can grow a thick skin, wouldn't really want to though. Im a people pleaser being in the beauty industry, Im a good listener but i don't like playing into it. The scanner thing is a little freaky though. Don't like that. Is there anyway to block one phones?

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by rickers

Many people will get a scanner and illegally program the easily available cordless and cell phone codes. Then they can listen in on their neighbors private phone conversations and then go blabbing your business all over town !

My old B/W TV would sometimes pick up conversations... seemed to be phones, not CBs. This was back in the 1970s. Quite annoying, actually.

Anyone on a party line (which probably still exist in some rural areas) learns to assume that everyone on down the line can hear everything they say. As someone once put it, it's a great timesaver -- you don't have to waste time spreading gossip yourself.

As someone here says, gossip is just a fact of life in small towns, cuz these people's lives ARE slower-paced and they have the time for it. But ANY two people who get together WILL talk about someone else, it's just the way we're wired, to spread information within the species. You yourself have to be willing to draw the line at what's acceptable chat and what's hurtful gossip, and be an example to the community. People who feel censured for spreading malicious talk will do less of it (remember it takes two -- one to talk and one to listen!), or at least it'll be limited to the people you don't give a damn what think anyway.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by MySerendipity

Wow! Good to know. That would drive me crazy, Hate gossip. I can grow a thick skin, wouldn't really want to though. Im a people pleaser being in the beauty industry, Im a good listener but i don't like playing into it. The scanner thing is a little freaky though. Don't like that. Is there anyway to block one phones?

Don't use cordless phones, that's about it. All other phones are, and always have been vulnerable to being overheard, since they are basically radios using public airwaves. Anyone who hits on the right frequency can receive that radio traffic. I'd say the main risk is giving a credit card number over a cordless phone.

Some of the newer VOIP (Voice over internet) protocols might scramble traffic, but I don't know at what point this protection kicks in. I don't know if any of the cellphone networks are encrypted.

If ANY point in a wireless chain (from your mouth to the other person's ear) isn't encrypted, that point IS vulnerable.

But the fact is, most people have better things to do with their time. Aside from the credit card issue, the sort of person who'd waste their life eavesdropping on other people's casual chatter... well, they have no life, so who cares what they think?

(A life? Where can I download that??

[Timberwolf232]

Haha.. When I worked for the cable company years ago in Bozeman, I was once accused of working for the CIA and planting a camera in this guys VCR. He read me the riot act and actually disassembled the VCR, called the shop and demanded that my boss look at it and prove to him that there was no camera installed. (OK it took him an hour to disassemble the VCR and somehow, in the 10 minutes I was there I somehow, under his eye planted a camera inside the VCR. Talk about a nutjob..lol

[rickers]

Sounds like that dude was a brain fried paranoid meth head. Was all of his teeth rotted out ? ! One thing to remember about people eaves dropping via a scanner on phone conversations is that cordless phones may have a range of about a block or two where as cell phones have to have a transmission range to reach a cell tower and that could be several miles.
Reziac is getting rep points from me for the point about not using a radio phone of any type for buying products or paying bills and saying your account information over the phone . Use a hard line phone for those transactions and for the juicy conversations !

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by rickers

Sounds like that dude was a brain fried paranoid meth head.

Or a garden-variety schizophrenic. I've known so many of 'em in the programming community (where it's endemic) that I can spot 'em secondhand.

Originally Posted by rickers

One thing to remember about people eaves dropping via a scanner on phone conversations is that cordless phones may have a range of about a block or two where as cell phones have to have a transmission range to reach a cell tower and that could be several miles.

Yep. Line of sight, but functionally figure about 15 miles.

Originally Posted by rickers

Reziac is getting rep points from me for the point about not using a radio phone of any type for buying products or paying bills and saying your account information over the phone . Use a hard line phone for those transactions and for the juicy conversations !

'Xactly so. Tho how many people still own a hardwired phone? I do, but I'm weird

The other thing to remember is that cordless (non-cell) phones usually don't work when the power is out... another reason to keep an old-fashioned corded phone on hand, even if it's not your regular yakker.

[Tinkerbelle]

If something happened with someone we knew that we really didn't agree with we just didn't see them anymore, period.



That just made me smile. That is exactly what it was like where I was raised. Living in the South I have found it is totally different. Do not want to generalize everyone, but I have found people talk about everyone and the next thing you see is they are all hanging around having drinks. Totally eludes me, that is why I need to be back in the north!!