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.

*wandering daydreams about taking over the world*

It turns out that the really nice safety/security guy (whose name I feel weird about revealing for some reason) had worked in IT for 25 years before Sundance, so my job was to stand there while he reset the router… that was out of my reach anyway. I’m short. I wanted to take a photo of the small, power-beholden closet to share here, but I decided not to ask and instead snapped a quick photo looking out at the threatening icicles.

That was pretty much my adventure for the day. The internet started working and there still wasn’t much for me to do. I walked around a little, enjoying the sun and taking photos at the base of the ski lift. A woman and her two boys were building a snowman—the youngest threw that snowball at me (he missed) right after I took this photo:

I offered to take a photo of them with the mom’s camera to help me feel less weird about taking photos of her children. She happily accepted. Then the little boy slid down a snow bank head first “wheeeeeeeeee!” and almost cracked his head open on the paved walkway near my feet. He was giggling uncontrollably. The mom asked if I would help him up. so I did—by chucking him back up like a discus. At least that’s how I pictured it in my head. I probably looked more like a slow-motion dumbwaiter making “ungffh” noises right before it collapses from the strain.

I would have liked to take more portraits of the cute kids and the snowman, but I wanted to watch the next film so I headed back to the Screening Room. The theater was completely filled—but the projectionist had an extra chair and had welcomed me to visit any time. He’s more social than last year’s projectionist was. He didn’t mind me sitting up there to watch Winter’s Bone through the glass, so that’s what I did. My seat was right next to a very loud fan but I could still hear the audio being pumped through the projection room speaker pretty well.

I was given the obvious reminder not to touch anything, to which I said “of course” but which also sent a searing surge of nervous chemicals to my stomach because I’m not exactly the most… coordinated person. I looked at the panel of switches and labels and lights about a foot away from me.

Self, you must not move AT ALL.

At one point I realized that I was leaning slightly against the metal shelf that held the projector, or at least one of them, and I quickly convulsed away from it. It turned out fine—I didn’t accidentally turn off the movie or switch it to MTV or anything. Phew.

Winter’s Bone was a really good drama. I now want to read the book that it’s based on and see the film again someday. I also recommend the film Please Give, which I saw from the theater after my shift had officially ended.

My drive home was thankfully much more boring than the night before. I was getting very tired on the last hill up to my house, though—at least until I saw a very large mule deer in the middle of the road. I’m not positive if it was a fat buck or a pregnant doe—now is about the time when bucks have shed their antlers if I’m not mistaken. But it was larger than the ones I normally see around my neighborhood. It stared into my headlights for a few seconds before sauntering slowly (and in a way that makes me think it was pregnant) to the sidewalk and disappearing into the night.

I arrived home and disappeared into the night myself to prepare for Monday and the long week ahead.

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!