Can you ever really say the stress is over?

In my position I don't think so. I mean maybe if I miraculously channeled Buddha while I was at work and the silly, ridiculous problems I solve on a day to day basis did not bother me at all. But I find being a "yes" person for my company a constant challenge. On the bright side my patience is amazing.

Anywho to the real story. The 2009 Festival is over!!!!! Wooohooo! After 16 straight 10 hour days of work I am finally able to relax. I have to say that the 2008 Festival is winning on a scale of which one I liked better. It's kind of funny becasue when I first started working at the Sundance Institute everyone told me your first festival will be the hardest and they will get easier. I don't think that was the case this year. There were a few factors that made the difference. For example, 2008 I received lodging in park city which totally helped on the exhaustion level. After a 10 hour + day I could drive five minutes and be able to relax. 2009, no lodging. worked a 10 hour day and then had a 40 min drive home every night. Then getting up an extra hour early to make sure I got to work on time. I didn't think it woudl make that much of a difference because really I make the drive everyday anyways but when the days started to add up it hit kind of hard. There were deffinitley a couple mornings driving up the canyon where I had to constantly remind myself that falling asleep while driving is fatal! Thank goodness the weather didn't much up the roads. Second big difference, well on top of driving as you can imagine I had to fill up my car a lot. In the first week of the fest 3 times in a week time period. My car gets decent gas mileage too. In 08 we got Per Diem's to help supplement us moving up to Park City where everything jacks up the prices. This year no Per Diem so while I was spending a crap load of money on gas to get to work I just ate the cost. My reception team was really bummed too becaue they missed out on everything above. They felt like they weren't important within the company. They knew they were, you take away someone directing calls, office supplies and internal customer service and company falls apart. They just wish that our co-workers would recognize that everynow and then. The woos of being at the bottom of the food chain. I just felt bad that my team moral was so low and I am not sure how to fix it.

On the bright side of it all. It is over. We got tons of compliments from people who came to the festival this year saying it was great. A lot of visitors came in and said thank you for all of our hard work. In the end that makes it. Also seeing how happy the filmmakers are. They are so gracious and excited to be a part of something like the festival.

Here is a pic I snapped driving over Parley's Summit one morning when the sun was coming up. That sunrise made driving to work in the morning worth it.