In addition to finishing off house projects, it was Art Deco weekend in Napier. In 1931, Napier was completely devastated by a 7.8 earthquake. Hundreds of people died, many (if not most) of the buildings collapsed, and even the geography of the area changed. The town had to be completely rebuilt and Art Deco was all the rage of the time. The end result was that Napier became the Art Deco capital of the world. Each year the town celebrates this by having parades, music, air shows - all sorts of fun and frivolity to celebrate that which is art deco. We walked in to watch the parade of historical cars.
There were other things going on, but the crowds were a bit much this year. A huge cruise ship, the maiden voyage of the Queen Victoria, pulled into the port and added an extra 2000 people to the milling crowds. So, instead of fighting our way through the streets, we walked over to the port to check out the ship. It was amazingly huge!
Here is a picture of the ship as it pulled out of port that evening (taken from Burg's treehouse).
As far as the property goes... we had been talking with the previous owners about some equipment that they contacted us about. They had a tractor, mower, ATV, etc. - all in really great shape - that they contacted us about possibly buying. The equipment all sounded like it was in great condition. We told them that we were definitely interested and asked them to email us some pictures. Since we wouldn't normally be getting these things this early in the process (we don't even have a garage to keep anything in at this moment), we weren't on top of pricing and wanted to check that out also. Anyway, they emailed us the pictures on Thursday, we got back to the guys on Monday and then were told, "Oops!" Too late. They had already made an agreement to sell the equipment to another guy in the area. They apparently hadn't heard back (those 4 interminably long weekend days) and thought we weren't interested. Reality - these guys are complete spazzes! I mean what the heck?!
Greg fired off this scathing email. (Don't email angry, kids!) Nothing rude or mean - just very to the point and rather... terse. The sort of thing that pointed out in no uncertain terms how disappointed (disapproving) in the whole situation we are. It really made me cringe to read it. ("I understand that it is difficult to pass up cash in hand, but it would seem as though a simple phone call would not have been asking too much..." etc., etc.) It was just spot on. The guy ended up calling that night and apologizing. He explained that he was anxious to get rid of the equipment before they left for an overseas trip next week. They wrote it off as an unfortunate misunderstanding/miscommunication, but I still think that the guy is just a complete spazz! (For more insight on their spazziness, stay tuned for a future post in which we recount the process by which we ended up buying this bit of land. A veritable study in capriciousness.) I appreciate that he did the right thing by apologizing. Now we can carry on with whatever relationship we will have as neighbors. However, I can guarantee that we will be wary in dealing with them in the future.
In the end, it is a disappointment that we will miss out on getting some very nice, slightly used equipment, but we aren't going to dwell on it. The timing probably wasn't the best and something else will come along. All of this will be much easier to arrange when we can do it in person - not over emails and telephone conversations.
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