-Hatchelings weigh less than one ounce and are only two inches long.  -Adults can grow over 3 feet long and weigh 200 to 300 pounds!

-The nest temperature during incubation determines a sea turtle’s sex.  -If it is cold it will be male.  -The warm nests will turn out females.

(My next door neighbor Ellen is on the board of the nearby Clearwater Marine Aquarium, which not only rescues sick or injured sea animals, they also monitor nearly 26 miles of Pinellas County’s coast line and reports on any nesting activity.  They help prevent extinction of these sea turtles by rescuing an releasing them into the Gulf as hatchlings.  You can learn more about them at cmaquarium.org.)

Here are the Fun Facts!  -Florida beaches are home to 80% of Loggerhead turtles in the U.S.

-Turtles can migrate thousands of miles, but usually return to lay their eggs on the same beach where they hatched.  -Only when the female lays her eggs do they come ashore.

One of our favorite <a href=’http://www.myspace.com/ron_pollack’>Ron Pollack family</a> vacation spots is our Florida beach house because of the turtles.

Traffic controllers advised us that the town would be a snarling mess, and the traffic flow control impossible. Fortunately, due to the failing markets and the new president taking office, this just wasn’t the case.

Most of Hollywood that attends Sundance also were invited and/or attended the inaugration.

It was helpful that this was a “quiet” year at Sundance, as it assisted me in learning the ropes, such as how to navigate through the process of obtaining tickets. I think over the course of two weeks at Sundance, I learned 80% of what I need to know in order to achieve the following goals for our next Sundance Festival.:

1)    See the films we want to see, including the ones that have “The Buzz”.
2) Obtain the best seats each time.
3) Have the ability to secure additional tickets at the last minute.
4) It is wise to make time for a good meal as well as our movies.
5) Use less money and time taking care of these goals than I did this last year.

What you experience at The Sundance,  totally depends on what you expected it to be. My wife is particular and likes good seats. Thanks to my Blackberry, it’s possible for me to obtain them for us and still stay connected to work while standing in line. The answer I came up with was to join the “Patron Circle.” Although I do like to support the arts; the real reason that we donated to the Sundance Institute was so that we could get into the films without standing in line.  For some, being able to get into see the film they want is paramount (no pun intended, well, not really).  Standing in line for tickets was an expected part of the experience.

We loved some of the movies, of course!
The Good:
Other selections: “Push”, a film about abuse that brought tears to my eyes, and left me with a pain in my gut. “Spread” was my wife’s choice for underdog of the year; it’s an Ashton Kutcher photoplay situated in Hollywood. “Good Hair”, a half-amusing, half-serious docudrama by Chris Rock, about an African American woman’s search for straight hairdos, and finally, to round out the list there was “500 Days of Summer” — a romance with a twist: “Man, She’s a Dude!”Of her lack of feminine romatic tendencies because of “Man, she’s a dude” was the line that sumed up Zoey Deschanel’s chracter, as Summer.

One drawback was having to make daily trips to the Patron Circle Office in order to exchange our tickets. Unluckily, with our passes we could not be allowed view the film before paying for it.

We’ve walked out on some “stinkers”. “Unmade Beds” was an example. We think it was about teen lust run wild in the United Kingdom, but it was so bad we couldn’t sit through it to analyze the message. “The Carter” peered into the soul of a man bereft of humanity, who manages to make himself a success in life. The irony there was lost on the public. Finally, “Motherhood” was a true wreck of a film more resembling a bad sitcom for the casting department. We felt it was a total waste of Uma Thurman’s amazing gifts, reducing her to the level of a grade B soap star.

Surprises:

We began the Sundance trip feeling as if we were complete strangers on the scene, despite the fact that we have owned a home in Park City since last spring, yet in some way the event became more familiar and even comfortable after some time had passed.

Getting used to the traffic patterns, hopping on a cab for a ride through the mysterious back streets and alleys of Park City, falling into a few private parties, through “someone who knew someone” who was actually invited; these things almost made it feel as if we were old hands at the scene by the end of our trip,being in the same “breathing zone” as the directors and actors on the stage during the Q&As after each film, not to mention sitting in the same theaters during screenings, being treated very warmly by the ever-friendly staff of the Patron’s Circle Office.