In Seattle for the night

Spent about $100 today -- got a nice lab hot-plate/stirrer and another vibratory stirrer. These will be handy for yeast culturing for homebrew. Some of the bidding was insane -- a nice lab balance went for $750 when an equivalent unit sells brand new for $700 with warranty and current calibration. There was a Mass Spectrometer that had a known problem with the onboard computer that would have cost $3K for the spare parts and it went for $3K -- brand new, this would cost $30K so that was a good deal but the sale was strictly as-is/where-is and with the bad board, you would not be able to test the unit for operation. And yeah, there were no disks for the required software. Still, owning a Mass Spectrometer would be a cool toy to have but... The only other item I seriously bid on was a vacuum deposition unit -- had one of these when I was living in Boston and it was a lot of fun. The unit went for $450 which was above my range -- $200 and it would be in the back of my truck now. Drove to where tomorrows auction is -- an area south of Seattle called Georgetown. It was always a kind of funky/industrial area and I liked it a lot but there was a real crime problem. The places has cleaned up nice in the last ten years -- looks like it would be a fun place to hang out with caf�s and bars and all sorts of artsy stores. There is also the wonderful Museum of Communications but it is only open Tuesdays... Heading out to walk around University Village and get a bite to eat for dinner. Early day today and tomorrow.