Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

In stark contrast to my gray and snowtastic Saturday, Sunday was full of fresh air and sunshine. A little gray in the morning but otherwise beautiful. Once I was caffeinated enough to appreciate it, anyway.

Enough people were skiing that day to fill the lower (and more convenient) parking lots before I arrived, so I parked for the first time in the mystical “upper lot” that I didn’t even know existed until a couple days before. No signs point toward the twisty uphill road or say what’s up there, but now I know it exists. This new adventure gave me the opportunity to ride a shuttle bus filled with snowboarders. “Duuuuuuude!”

Once I arrived at the Screening Room (that’s the entrance pictured above—sort of tucked in near the end of a winding path that leads past the base ski lift), there were already plenty of volunteers on staff. That’s a good thing for overall operation of the theater, but I was a little ticked because I would have rather slept in after that late and stressful night. They scheduled 3 people on box office when only 2 are needed—guess that builds in a little CYA in case someone no-shows.

I helped with the crowds for the first film of the day and soon after was given a completely different task. The networked phone/internet wasn’t working (HORROR) and I got the “you’re good with computers, right?” direction to be the liaison with tech support. The tech support guys would have come to fix it in person if we weren’t a 45-60 minute drive away from Park City.

(It always amuses me and catches me off guard when people think that I “know about computers.” Just because I spend all of my time dicking around online and/or being a slave to Adobe products doesn’t mean I how to fix things. I have an engineer husband for that kind of stuff! But when liaising with tech support is involved, I guess “you’re good with computers” really means that I know what a cat-5 cable is and I’m not afraid of touching Things With Blinking Lights)

The cool thing about my time with tech support was that I needed access to the router, which was located in a maintenance closet to which only the resort’s safety/security manager had a key. When I called to request that it be opened, the manager said it would be a few minutes because he had to a paparazzi issue to deal with.

Ooooooo!

When he arrived and we were walking around the back of the building, I smoothly inquired if paparazzi things had quieted down. They had. Then I asked “so is Bob on campus?” Which, in retrospect, really sounds like a geek trying to be cool and not realizing that it’s not working. Bob = Robert Redford if you’re in the know. And now you are in the know. But no, the paparazzi issue was not for him. It was for one of his friends whom I’d never heard of before.

The maintenance closet was cool not just because I had to step in a 3-foot drift of snow and over a 5-inch sheet of broken ice that had fallen from the roof to get to it. It was cool because it was behind one of those doors that people are trained not to see, hidden in plain sight, and because it was a place of power. Read more…

CLEVER, can I just say that? S’no? Snow? Heh heh…

The excitement of my evening shift for the festival was dominated by the weather. It, uh, sucked. The road that leads into Sundance Canyon was closed for an hour or so shortly before I arrived because of snowfall and dangerous conditions and accidents. Hooray! It was open when I got there, but a cop stationed with flashing lights at the mouth of the canyon, right by the huge “snow tires/chains/4-wheel drive required” sign, stopped me to check. I have a little all-wheel drive Subaru (with relatively new tires, thank the flying spaghetti monster) so I was permitted to pass.

I took it slow and made it safely. The resort was blanketed in snow and totally gorgeous. Night skiing is new this year, so there were a lot of skiiers still on the mountain and clomping out in the parking lot. My cell phone reception sucked almost as much as the weather, possibly due in part to the weather, so I didn’t get to send the cell phone photos I took. But Twitpic is working, so yay for that! I did upload some photos to Flickr.

I didn’t end up watching much of either movie last night, but got to know the new volunteers and re-learned a little about people I worked with last year. I got my white volunteer jacket (which I have NOT yet dirtied), which fits for the most part.

The biggest adventure started after my shift ended at 10:30. I don’t have time to tell it in full right now because I’m supposed to meet my friend Marie and drive up to Park City in a little bit. But I didn’t get home until almost 1:30am. And it involved a little bit of this. Oooo, teaser!