Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

Author: jkonrath

  • 51

    I am fifty-one today. I’m not sure what to say about this oddball number. After 21, only the big round numbers matter. This is the first post-50 birthday, so I’m now into my quinquagenarian years. I can contribute an extra $6,500 to my 401K. Car insurance is easier to get. Life insurance isn’t. 50 was…

  • New camera: Canon EOS 620

    Because apparently I don’t have enough film cameras in the house, I got another one recently: the Canon EOS 620. Film isn’t cheap right now, and some cameras are getting ridiculous. The Canonet QL17 rangefinder I bought in 2014, probably one of my best film cameras, costs roughly three times as much on the open…

  • Photo book, film, rain

    I have a new photo book out. It is prohibitively expensive, but was fun to do. I enjoy making photo books on Blurb, but I don’t expect to sell any of them. It’s great to do if you want a few copies to have around the house, but like I said, Blurb’s prices are a…

  • Film, memoirs, rollovers

    I just got back from another walk around NAS Alameda with two of my film cameras, the Vivitar point-and-shoot and the Canon QL-17. Nice weather for a walk, although there was some event going on and the west side of the island was far too busy for me. I should probably get used to that,…

  • videos, writing, programming, pocket computer

    I am sort of done with the Random Life project. There are 100 videos there now. It was fun digging through some old stuff, but I got almost zero reaction from anyone out of it, and maybe it was a dumb idea. Oh well. Maybe in two or three years, I’ll look at it again and…

  • Random Life, Data Hoarding, Pictures

    The Random Life project is running out of steam, which is fine. I have posted 100 videos, and I’m about out of footage. They’re scheduled to come out one a day for the next month. 81 are live as of this second. I might get bored and post all of them in one big deluge. I’ve…

  • Every mall I’ve ever visited (list)

    Here is a list of every mall I have ever visited, that I can remember. A few disclaimers: I only listed enclosed malls (or ones that were enclosed at the time) Some of the names have changed. I’m not going to go through every mall bought by Westfield and change stuff like Fox Hills to…

  • Back to Earth

    I guess I’ve been back from LA for almost a week, but haven’t done the full stupid trip report, as usual. Not a lot to report; I tried to get out and do a few things, but I wanted to avoid three particular activities: eating ten times the normal amount; doing tourist trap stuff; and…

  • The Second

    So, change of plans on the Seattle thing. I am not ready to fly. And I’m not ready to see people, or see any of the various ghosts of Seattle that would bother me. And then there’s Delta. So, about two days before leaving, I canceled everything, backed out, and then needed to correct course.…

  • New Project: Random Life

    I’m starting a new video project. It is called Random Life. TL;DR: Random Life The long story: I have always been a fan of Structural films, or minimalist filmmaking. This started with Richard Linklater’s movie Slacker, which I always liked because it captured the zeitgeist of a college campus at the end of the 80s/start of…