A Site for Shore Eyes

What is it with these traffic lights on the island (especially in Wildwood and Wildwood Crest) that have no apparent usefulness during the winter months?

The environmentalists scream about the amount of gasoline Americans use, and we on the island spend so much of our precious time sitting at traffic lights, with our engines burning gas and spewing out exhaust!

It wouldn’t be so bad if there were a chance an actual vehicle might come through the light in the opposite direction, but the odds of that happening are just slightly better than hitting the lottery.

The timing sequence of the lights are little more than someone’s bad joke. None of this could have occurred by happenstance. After stopping at one red light, the one at the next intersection will turn red before you can negotiate your vehicle over the rugged terrain! Back in the 60’s the lights on New Jersey Avenue were sequentially timed for a certain speed, but only in one direction. Many of those signals were removed, and now the timing is spotty at best.

That however, brings us to another winter island phenomenon: the magically appearing ghost car. Pretty much whenever you pull up to a stop sign during the winter, a car will be coming, usually a half block away, but no other vehicles will be in sight in either direction! The roads here are very straight and flat, so it’s easy to see for at least a mile in each direction. Go to the next stop sign, and another ghost car will appear. I sometimes wonder if some people have the job of sitting in their cars near intersections and waiting for a vehicle to appear at the cross road. . . Yes, I might be a bit paranoid, except that the ghost cars never appear at intersections that have traffic signals.

I think the last Christmas snowflake may have finally melted. A few days ago some were still shining brightly, sort of like the mayor and commissioner who were governing when the decorations were put up.

It will be interesting to see what the new regime does about the streets. Will the sponsors of the Baja 500 start a five-mile version on the island? Will someone in the road department finally figure out that when an opening in a street is patched, it should be made level with the rest of the street? The latter seems highly unlikely.

Besides the deplorable condition of the streets and roads on the island, and the unnecessary traffic signals, I also commend the designers of the traffic lanes. I’m particularly fond of how lanes suddenly run out, sort of Surekill Expressway style. Park Boulevard at 26th Avenue is a great example. Suddenly a driver finds that two lanes suddenly became one! The same thing occurs at New Jersey and 26th , but without the left turning lane. On New Jersey, nothing warns the driver about the change – he or she just has to figure it out.

For some reason, several of the main drag streets in North Wildwood never aligned with those in Wildwood, for the most part. The aforementioned Park Boulevard in Wildwood misaligns with Delaware Avenue in North Wildwood. Central, 26th, and Pacific Avenues form a shining example of disaster planning. If you can figure out who has the right-of-way after stopping, please let me know. And what’s that four-way stop on Pacific all about? Is that for the parade of traffic coming from the water park on Schellenger Avenue? Or maybe from the steady stream of diners fleeing Schellenger’s Landing?
Neither attraction is even open during the winter months.

Another misalignment occurs at Ocean Avenue in Wildwood where it doesn’t meet Surf Avenue in North Wildwood. Last year the powers that be exacerbated the situation with the new design for Surf. Ocean Avenue in North Wildwood bears no resemblance (or alignment) with Ocean Avenue in Wildwood. Go figure.

I suppose we’re all waiting with bated breath for the LED lights that will crisscross Pacific Avenue after the next phase of bright ideas. If the ones strung up haphazardly during the holidays were intended as a sampling, thanks, but no thanks. . .

Google Earth Street View now covers a lot of territory, including the Wildwoods and other places in South Jersey. Check it out – you just might see yourself, or at least your humble abode.

Being civic minded, I took my vehicle to a local repair shop. My first clue should have been that “Anglesea Auto Repair” is not in Anglesea, by about fourteen blocks. On the other hand, I also happened to know the owner, the brother of my late sister’s best friend. All I wanted was a new alternator, but he phoned me later and told me the vehicle needed all new belts.

After subtracting the AAA discount and adding the acquaintance penalties, the bill came to somewhat more than I expected, but it also seemed to be a bit higher than my math results showed. I surmised that my figures were probably in error, being that I’m a retired structural engineer, and know little about math, but nonetheless, I called the owner back, just to make sure he hadn’t made a mistake.

Actually, the problem was that he forgot to mention the “Tourism and Development” tax, which piggybacks the normal sales tax. He said this would be $24.65. This is to ensure that the municipality has adequate funds for the convention center, which hardly benefits year-round residents. I read the details of the technical bulletin, which indicated that auto repair shops are not considered a type of business subject to this particular tax. It also stated that the tax is two percent.

There is, however, a stipulation that a municipality can impose the tax on certain businesses not subject to the tax. In other words, if a type of business is exempt, it can be taxed anyway, meaning that it’s not exempt, even though it is. Right. . .

In order to clarify the intent of the law, and to ascertain why I should not take my vehicle out of town to be repaired, thus avoiding the additional tax, I called the North Wildwood city clerk, who said I should call the clerk’s office in Wildwood, which suggested calling the Wildwood Convention Center. The gentleman there stated that auto repair businesses pay a flat rate of $300.00 per year, which should not be passed on to the consumer.

When I picked up my vehicle, the owner of the shop said the tourism fee was listed as “shop supplies.” I told him I wanted it to show what he said it was, so he wrote, “Greater Wildwood Torism[sic] Devel Act.” He also charged me $6.80 for “hazardous materials,” and I asked him what that meant, being that he gave me the old belts to take with me. He said it was for disposal of rags and stuff, or something to that effect. Not that I suspected at this point that he wasn’t being entirely truthful, but I harbored some suspicions that it doesn’t cost him $6.80 to throw away a rag. Nonetheless, he said that the tourism tax was three percent, not two. Here we get into more fuzzy math. If $24.65 is three percent of the bill, then the total bill should have been $821.67, but again, what do I know? The total bill before discounts was supposedly $614.01, and was $555.75 after applying the discount, but before adding the sales tax. With 7 percent sales tax, the total is $594.65. No matter what percentage I use, I am unable to come up with a figure of $24.65, whether I use two, three, or four percent.

I have since learned that a state tax official is interested in knowing more about the fee that the shop owner is charging, and is wondering whether or not he’s actually making money from a tax he doesn’t have to pay. At any rate, she assured me that she will get a refund for me, if he is indeed charging for the tourism tax.

At this point, it’s still undecided as to who is the more stupid person, he or I? I’m going to go with him for now, while I await the final outcome. In the meantime, if you happen to live in the area and need your vehicle repaired, get in touch with me, and I’ll be happy to put in a good word for you with the shop owner. On the other hand, perhaps if he doesn’t know you, you might get a better deal. . . Or, you could just opt for a reputable repair shop.

Here we go again. Not content with starting an entire millennium a year early, the newspapers, sportscasters, and some other public figures have started touting the beginning of a “new decade.” One of the announcers of the first bowl game of the year said it was the first football game of the new decade. A newspaper in Florida just announced that identical twins were born in different decades.

What is it with people who keep compounding errors until almost everyone believes that the wrong thing is right? The year thing started when Bill Clinton insisted on being the “New Millennium President,” even though his reign in the twenty-first century lasted only a bit more than nineteen days.

Years work just like any other set of objects that can be divided into decades. Rosary beads are an excellent example. A set consists of five decades, separated by a single bead between each decade. Ignoring the separator beads, the first decade begins with the first bead and ends with the tenth. The second decade begins with the eleventh bead. That’s right, count them if you’re not sure. Ergo, the second decade of the second millennium (which started on January 1, 2001, after 2000 years were completed) begins on January 1, 2011. This isn’t something that’s debatable, because facts aren’t fodder for argument.

People often confuse facts with theories. It’s okay to be skeptical of theories, unless those theories are proven. Then they become facts. I’ve known individuals who look at me funny when I tell them that gold is considerably heavier than lead, and that platinum is heavier than gold. This isn’t a theory I worked out, and it’s not an opinion, but a fact. One person looked up the atomic weight of each and declared me wrong, although the atomic weight has nothing to do with the density, or actual mass of the material.

Man-made global warming, or climate change, is a theory; and even though it can’t be proven, supporters don ski masks and shout that it’s true to the shivering masses gathered on the frozen town squares. Right now, with the wind chill at fifteen degrees, I’d be more inclined to believe the ice age sycophants from the 1970s. Sadly, we’re going to pay a heavy financial price based solely on opinions concerning climate change.

Evolution is another theory, but supporters have succeeded in having it taught as an exclusive truth in schools in many states. No one has successfully explained why cave men evolved as humans, while the many species of monkeys remained as the apes they have always been.

Nor has anyone shown how a cross in the Mojave Desert, or The Ten Commandments in a courthouse, or a Nativity scene on a city-owned property means that congress has passed a law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free practice thereof. Show me the law and I’ll shut up. Someday maybe we’ll get all this right, but right now, many of us are nothing more than voices in the wilderness.