notes from sundance day 2

driving home tonight, the weather was fine in salt lake, but driving over the point of the mountain took me into the heart of the maelstrom. the snowflakes were so thick and coming down so hard that at times it seemed as if i was driving through snow as high as the hood of my car. definitely some of the most disorienting weather i've been in. with that, here are some things that happened on friday, january 22, 2010

• i think i worked for a total of five hours today. i picked up a director at the airport and read through the festival guide about him beforehand. he went to iowa state university, the same as my dad, he worked as a cinematographer before directing this, his first feature, and the dp he used was a guy i had worked with on a pilot for fox out here a few years ago (it didn't get picked up). his movie is called get low and sounds pretty interesting. it stars robert duvall, bill murray, and sissy spacek. he said that bobby usually does 2-3 takes then is ready to move on, while bill likes to experiment and try new things, and sissy likes to talk about the scene extensively. working with those differences was a challenge.

• my friend is on the premier fleet for today and is driving around bill murray. he called me and asked if i could run to a store and pick something up for bill. i was all stoked and ready to go as i checked in with our team leader. he had just sent another driver out to take care of the run. that pretty much depressed me for the rest of the day (or at least the next two minutes). (i just learned he was driving with him all day, but he did seem him when he stopped by the house he was staying at. still....)

• having a few hours of down time (which is helping me get caught up in harry potter and the order of the phoenix) i ran a couple of festival organizers downtown then got a call that i might be needed at the st. regis. i learned that is a very, very upscale hotel that is in a gated and secluded area of park city. i can see it being a beautiful place to stay in the summer, but it's so remote in the winter that i'm not sure why you'd stay there if you were planning on skiing or even leaving the hotel.... maybe if you can afford to stay there you can afford a jet pack, too. i also learned that, as blessed as my minivan is, it is not equipped to go up steep hills in wet, slippery snow. thank goodness i learned to drive in minnesota....

• i arrived at the xanadu-like hotel atop the hill and decided to get rid of the empty starbucks cup before i picked up the peoples. but there was no garbage can out front. nor was there one anywhere visible in the lobby and both concierges were busy. so i walked through like i belonged there, looking for a garbage can. it really did look like citizen kane's palace, very nice and very cold and you're not allowed to touch anything. finally i found the restrooms. these were nicer than anything i had ever seen in vegas (which really aren't especially nice) or anywhere. there were two "hampers" of sorts inside, which at first looked identical, and still no apparent sign of a simple garbage can. one hamper had a sign above it reading "trash" and the other had nothing but white linen napkins: this place had no business with paper towels. ....as long as i was here, no one would mind, right? so i used the facilities and dried my hands with one of the tightly wrapped cloth burritos in the basket next to the sink. i waited outside for another 20 minutes only to be told that there were no more people for me to pick up. i switched my sirius xm to "area" (the techno station) and appreciated that going downhill was much easier.

• the snow was coming down decently, but it also make everything look wonderful. the house lights on the hills around the valley glowed and flared through the haze of falling snow in the twilight and i decided that i was really enjoying this job. i love driving (in high school i thought it would be fun to be a trucker for a while), i like the snow, i like being around the energy of the festival, and i like being part of it all, that it's organized and i have permits and passes to get me wherever i need to go. and i remembered that the worst part of being single is not during the hard and trying moments, but of not having anyone to reach out and share the moments of awesomeness with. so i did the next best thing and turned up the radio and sang along with the 80s new wave station.

• i think i've named my minivan "hostess." as in, "it's big and round and white like a hostess snowball." the name hasn't really stuck, but then the car will be gone in a week anyway.

• me and the other jeff (i'm once again "goose;" i like being "goose") were scheduled to pick up some polish people from the airport, take them to the tower theater, then bring them to park city after their movie. another guy had had a very slow day and offered to do it for me since i had to drive all the way to provo. i was on kearns blvd. and almost out of town when i got a call to go back to the office for a needed run. i got there just as the original driver showed up--he had been stuck at the sundance resort in provo canyon for most of the day and said that the roads down there were a parking lot with slide-offs everywhere. i was free to go home again, but had i not come back and seen him, i would have been through heber city before i'd know that i had to come all the way back and go home through salt lake. and that would have been lousy.

• i've been on a real coldplay kick lately. i couldn't listen to them for a few months and now i can't get enough, especially the prospekt's march ep. not only do i delight completely in "life in technicolor II", but i find myself watch the video on youtube again and again. puppets are cool.