We spent the past weekend in Wildwood cleaning up after out first tenant and looking forward to enjoying our nice cool condo with our new $4,400 air conditioner. I turned it on and it proceeded to run for 8 hours without cooling the condo below 73 degrees. It was 71 degrees outside. To say I wasn’t a happy camper is putting it mildly. I left two extremely sarcastic angry voicemails on the emergency line of the air conditioner company. They finally called me back just as we were headed to the Shamrock to see Billy Jack. I told them to come first thing in the morning. They arrived at 1:30 in the afternoon. It seems the installer didn’t add refrigerant to the air conditioner. That really gives me a feeling of comfort about my new unit. But it seems to be working now.
On Monday, Avalon and I hopped on our bikes and rode down to the rocks where the Hazardous Area/Keep Off signs warn people of the tremendous danger. As we sat on the bench, two little female joggers came jogging down the beach, approached the rocks, trotted across the rocks in front of the signs and sauntered off the rocks back onto the beach. They must not have realized how much danger they were in. The idiocy of these signs was never more evident.
Next we moved onto the Hereford Lighthouse and their beautiful gardens where the old ladies who run the place don’t want anyone to chase the butterflies.
They aren’t too fond of kids either. Running and playing outside on grass is frowned upon. We wouldn’t want little kids to be curious or rambunctious. They might damage the grass or a bush. No fun allowed.
Later in the day we headed for the beach for a little relaxation by the sea. As we entered the beach we were confronted by the largest list of things we couldn’t do I’ve ever seen. They forgot ball playing. The lifeguards will whistle you down if you try to throw a football around. This list is enough to drive you to drink, but it’s not allowed. Feeding the seagulls may be prohibited, but it didn’t stop that 4 year old brat next to us from creating a frenzy of flying rats from descending upon us by throwing food to them. Little brats and their loud mouthed mothers should be prohibited. We always seem to be sitting next to the loud family.
I love the no diving sign, with a picture in case you can’t read. How exactly can you dive from a flat beach? Sometime the idiocy of the governmental drones is too vast to comprehend. Wildwood has cornered the market on politicians and bureaucrats who couldn’t manage their way out of wet paper bag. They run the town like morons and hillbillies. How you could have one of the nicest beaches on the East Coast and manage to fuck it up, is beyond me. Questioning their authority and wisdom is strictly prohibited.
Admin,
This is what happens when you hang out with the hoi polloi. You really need to join the .1% and get your own private beach or like Larry Ellison just buy the whole damn island:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324798904578529682230185530
Bob.
I see they close at 10 pm to protect you against accidently walking into he ocean by mistake in the dark and drowning. Or is that to keep you from being rolled? It is NJ.
You can still drive on the beach here, but I have noticed the “new thing” is to have a $50, 000 golf cart with custom rims and and a flag on a radio antenna to tool around in. I remember back in the 80’s when real estate was in the toilet, somebody scrawled “Keep ‘er Wild” on the back of a derelict billboard on Mustang Island. I always liked that sign.
In my area city government wants to spend $250,000 taxpayer dollars for lights and whistles to warn the idiots not to swim in Lake Michigan if the waves are too big.
They say this is to avoid using taxpayer dollars to fight lawsuits because idiots don’t look at the warning flags and can’t figure out big waves are dangerous to swim in.
Darwinism, the stupid just drown, move on.
“No fun aloud.” WTF?
One of my favorite home-made signs up here is “No Shootin’ Aloud”. Presumably a suppressor is required equipment to hunt on this guy’s property.
Re gist of post-I commented on Iceland’s lack of paternalistic rules a week or two back. Not sure whether they trust the population, are too broke to buy signs and fences, or just haven’t been introduced to the US’ wonderful world of tort litigation. Regardless, it is refreshing to have to judge risk and decide your behaviour yourself.
I decided not to point out the “allowed” thing, but it seems AKAnon beat me to it.
I find it odd they don’t have guns on the “prohibited at the beach” list. Would have taken care of those gulls (or the kid) nicely.
AK,
R U calling Admin a moran?
Didn’t Shakespeare have a line in one of his plays “First, kill the lawyers”? Much of this sign nonsense stems from a fear of nuisance law suits. But hey, there was no “don’t kill a lawyer” sign … hmmm …
Pretty sure I would take a pipe cutter to those signs like in Cool Hand Luke. Just chop that shit down… fuckin Fun Police…
Down central america ways, there was this beach. Hard to get to, even if you knew where it was. 4X4 through the jungle, over fallen trees and shit, then a little hike when the “road” disappeared… you popped out on the Caribbean Sea on a perfect little beach and lagoon, sheltered from the sea.
Nobody there. Nobody for miles. You and your woman want to strip buck-assed nekkid and run around? You can do that. Want to build a fire? Fuck, just gather up the driftwood and build a big fucking fire you can see from orbit. Want to fish? Go ahead. You can even clamber out on the reef and hunt lobsters if you want. Want to get drunk as a skunk and nail your woman right there on the sand? Go on then… nobody there. And even if there was, they wouldn’t give a shit because they’d be doing the same thing as you…
I’m thinkin’ Admin would have liked our beach better than the one he has now… even if ours wasn’t manicured, with lifeguards and little gazebos and shit…
Billy, reminds me of a little, deserted beach on Tioman Island before they developed it. I didn’t have anyone to share it with at the time, but just skin-diving and laying out on the rocks in the sun was worth it. Just had to keep an eye out for the monitor lizards, but they’re generally shy critters, anyway.
Fun is definitely allowed at Long Beach Washington, along with:
Open fires
Dogs
Alcohol
Vehicles
Fireworks…
This phenomenon is not limited to .gov do gooders. I work at a large corp that enables your computer to crunch numbers. There is signage on just about every fixed and movable object. So much so that you don’t even notice it. Unless it’s new then it is just a passing “another waste of fucking money and resources” comment. One of these days I should catalog the most brain dead ones on a friday fail thread or something. However using cameras is mostly verbooten inside the site.
Galveston beach in Texas was pretty open 20 years ago when I visited there. Cars on the beach, bar-b-ques smokin’, some topless chics, booze flowin’. Not a cop or “don’t do” sign anywhere that I recall. Anybody been there lately?
At my house in Brigantine, you get eaten by green headed flies.
Fun.
Has it occurred to anyone that the land of the free may no longer be in the US ?
There are many places overseas (Latin America Comes to Mind) where this nonsense does not exist.
Then again, neither does the rule of law.
71°? Air conditioner?
Oh yeah. “But it’s so humid!”
I was thinkin’ I’d hung around here to long ya bunch of whinin’ closet liberals.
$4,400 to repair an AIR CONDITIONER?????? Good grief!
I get by just fine with 3 window units, highly efficient, that I turn on only when the temp is 85F, and then one at a time. The best one might cost $600 to replace. In this coolish 70F weather, I run the ceiling fan in my bedroom for about a half hour, when the noise starts to annoy me. Only in July does my electric bill reach $35. I mostly have electric bills of $22, which covers lights, computer, washer, dryer, dishwasher, fridge, and anything else I run.
Im surprised the compressor didnt seize. In most units, the compressor is lubricated by oil mixed in with the refrigerant
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign, choppin up the scenery, breakin my mind – do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign …
A beach without a BBQ and some good drinks is almost unknown in New Zealand. When they bother to actually post a warning sign it is usually about some serious shit. There are too many hazards here to bother with anything else. Hell, half the roads in the country would not be allowed in the U.S., many of the beaches have tall cliffs nearby and you can walk on them to the edge if you want. A fair number of fools or more adventurous types get killed over here just walking around without being careful enough.
A refreshing change!
I ride my bike for exercise through an area called “Whiteman’s Valley”. The way out of the valley is down hill steeply via a corkscrew mountainous road. No fences along the cliff side and if I am not careful or my breaks fail then off I will go to a near certain death. No warning signs either. Common sense expected.
I would not want to live in one of the house at the bottom of the cliffs as any fool on a bike, or worse yet, a car could ruin my sleeping as they slam through the roof.
Speaking of strictly prohibited, Obama’s going to be speechifying about a mile from my house tomorrow. If you see any clips of a slightly overweight honky in a Gadsden flag T-shit being kicked in the face by copfuk Secret Service guys, that would be me.
Good luck Iska
be sure to plug TBP, an asskicking is too good and opportunity to let it go to waist.
No open fires on the beach? After all, there is no way all that sand and water could quench a fire.
Meanwhile, Trinitite producing atomic bombs exploded over sand, hundreds of miles from a water source are A-OK. Got it.
Lawyers have killed this country by working tirelessly to eliminate Darwinism by growing bureaucracy and judicial/punitive departments.
If it saves one child!
If it saves one child in America, it is at the expense of millions of dollars and thousands of gubment jobs.
Insanity works until it doesn’t. That day seems so far away some times.
Hallie,
Good point I forgot. You see the remains of a lot of open fires on the beach over here. Better yet, there is a lot of drift wood on many of the beaches so you don’t have to bring your own!
If U can’t do anything, why’s it called “Wild”wood?
Call it Tamewood, Lamewood, Pussywood or something. Nothing wild about that fucking town.