My friend Susan asked about the auctions that I occasionally attend and when she told me that she'd never been to an auction before, I promised her that I'd upload some photos from one.

I hit the VA Tech Auction back in August and with the permission of the auctioneer I took a bunch of snapshots of the more interesting stuff. They hold the auction in a building that used to be a K-Mart, so you should be able to imagine the size of the thing... BIG. In addition to computers, personal electronics, clothes, furniture, gym equipment, office equipment, cameras, radios, cell phones, lab-equipment and all that other stuff, they have automobiles, trucks and occasionally construction equipment outside.

It's pretty cool when you first step inside, but they've got so much stuff for sale at each auction that the thing drags on interminably and the excitement wears thin after the first couple of hours.

The folks who attend the auction are generally pretty sharp about picking the best items out, so it's rare that a person will get a good deal on anything of value, but it's still fun to bid so long as you remember to bow out when you hit your top-dollar.

Since I've been making a lot of site-updates lately, I took the opportunity to test out a new Joomla module that facilitates making slideshows and liked it enough that I've added a "Slideshows" category to the Main Menu on the left side.

Click here for a direct link to the slideshow.