Amn't’s blog

Like last year, after I got done loading shells for the Henderson Bay show, I popped over to Firecracker Alley, the collection of stands on the Puyallup Reservation, to poke around a little.

I wasn't looking for anything too specific, just some fun little stuff to play with there during the day just to light some fuses and have a few little items saved up for when I need to smell a little smoke. I was also keeping my eyes open for wheels, because my uncle really wanted some and we didn't find any on our shopping trip the other day.

There weren't really any surprises, but some of the prices were actually decent for retail stands, at least for 200g cakes. I saw 500g cakes for anywhere from $50 to $150+. There was a wide variety of brands available, nothing seemed to dominate. I spotted Brothers, World Class, Red Rhino, Great Grizzly, Hales labels, etc.

One thing I was looking for were very small fountains (1-3"), they have a soft spot in my heart and are usually very cheap and quiet, so they are a fun way to smell a little smoke without annoying anybody. Of course this is a WA reservation, so nobody really wants tiny little fountains. After looking at practically every stand, the best I could find were little assortments that included a bunch of crap I didn't want, like whistles, smoke and confetti shooters. Who knew I would miss something about Oregon fireworks? I did end up getting two Purple Rain and a pack of assorted BC fountains, but those are too bit for what I was looking for!

The other thing I was looking for was wheels, because my uncle really wanted some and we didn't see any at the four stands we checked out the other day. I looked at every single stand (around 60) and nobody had them. On the bright side, I discovered that it was a good defense against annoyingly aggressive stand owners. They would shout about how I should check them out and when I asked for something they didn't have, they would shut up...

Right - Just a funny sign. I showed my wife and she wasn't nearly as amused as I was!

After buying a few things, I went out to their open parking lot to shoot stuff, after a day of dropping shells and looking at stands, I needed to light something! I just lit a few small items that aren't wanted in the daytime, like spinners, the video is at the bottom of the post.

Having gotten a few little things, but feeling slightly defeated on the fountains and wheels, I headed back to the freeway to go home. Halfway to the freeway, I saw a stand that was set up more like a store and had to make one more stop!

They were pretty good, with a larger selection than any of the stands, including more fountains and novelties. They also had a decent selection of 500g and pretty good variety of 200g and shells. They didn't have the littlest fountains I was hoping for, but they did have some classics like Jack In The Box and 1' TNT Amazing Fountain, I'll probably have to light one tonight...

Left - Inside the store, called Fireworks Outlet.

Prices on 200g were decent (didn't look at prices on 500g or shells), I was surprised to see some of the 24/1 200g cakes as low as $8. Sure, you can get them for $2-3 each wholesale, but they are still a good bargain for the price-conscious consumer. They also had wheels! They had two large wheels, WC Spinning on Dubs ($25) and Vulcan Mammoth Wheel ($32). I wasn't about to spend that much on wheels, so I walked out with a few packs of small fountains. At the car I decided I wanted a picture of the wheels because the WC one was pretty cool, when I realized that next to those was a smaller wheel that only cost $5.50 (GG Hot Stuff)! It was in a box so I didn't realize what it was the first time, but quickly purchased two of them. I called my uncle to let him know I finally found him some wheels and he was at my place within 15 minutes of me getting home to pick them up! I'll have to see if I can find him more for next year.

Right - My combined purchases. The cake, BC and TNT fountains, and ground blooms (free) were from Firecracker Alley. I also got two Pyro Predator Jumbo Strobe to see if they are any good. The Jack In The Box 6 pack, Happiness Fountain 6-pack, and two Amazing Fountain 4-packs were from Fireworks Outlet.

I didn't find any many little fountains as I would have liked, but I'm happy I found a couple, as well as some wheels for my uncle. It was a lot of fun wandering around the stands and checking things out, but it is extra fun when you know you can get much better deals...

Below is video of the items I lit while at Firecracker Alley, try not to have a seizure from all the camera jerking...

Have a safe 4th!

Like last year, I'm helping Wolverine with the Hendeson Bay show. Sandboxes and tubes were set up yesterday, today I was there to help drop and wire shells. We had the same barge as last year in the same location, so nothing too exciting happened to report.

We started at 10am and had plenty of help, so things went quickly and we were done setting up by 3pm, the tug was scheduled to start moving the barge at 4pm for the 5 hour trip, so we got done in plenty of time. Tomorrow we'll set up the cakes and do continuity testing. Because we got so much done today, we aren't starting until 11am, which is pretty sweet.

We didn' t have a Coast Guard inspection this time, but we did get a visitor in the form of a freelance photographer taking pictures for the local (to where the show will be) paper. She got a couple pictures of me and we talked about what I was doing for a couple minutes, so who knows, maybe I'll be in a local weekly paper. I'll practically be Michael Jackson.

Like last year, the largest shells on the show are 8"  shells. I think every 8" shell was a waterfall, Richard (the guy who designed and sponsors the show) used six of them for the end of the show last year, apparently this is his favorite thing and has become a bit of a tradition. We also have a few mines (not as many as last year) and lots of shells from 2.5" to 6". I haven't seen the cakes opened up yet, but I know there are some of the new ones we shot at the Ephrata show, as well as a few 1.4G cakes.

I'll be on the barge during the show like last year, and hopefully getting video again.

Have a great Independence Day tomorrow, everyone!

Some douchebag in Seattle is try to sue the city to stop the 4th of July fireworks until the do an environmental review. I'm not going to bother explaining why this is stupid...

The story made Fark the other day, and now it was on a funny bit in the Colbert Report (video here).

Gas Works Park is actually pretty nice and a great place to watch the fireworks from, but it was still pretty funny...

At about 11:30pm Monday night I get a text message from my uncle asking if I have any fireworks. I tell him I don't have any that aren't already reserved for Renn Fayre 2010, but suggest a quick shopping trip to to PyroU member Chris/suess' stand, Winchester Fireworks.

I helped my uncle pick out $200 in product, a couple 200g cakes and lots of small stuff like ground flowers, bees, jumping jacks etc, mainly for the day and a few things when it gets dark before the 1.3G show where he'll be on the 4th.

But the item he really wanted was wheels, and Chris didn't have any. We went to three other stands within a few blocks (go Everett!), but nobody carried a single wheel! I did purchase a box of Fiery Eye (BP) and figured I could spare one since he wanted them so bad, I still have a few left and can get more for my own show if needed. I'll try and find some more wheels for him, but he won't get them in time for this year. This is why real pyros plan ahead, 365 days a year!

I couldn't go to a fireworks stand without buying something, and figured I should have a few small items stocked up in case I need a fix and will be someplace I can use them. I got a BP Pure Fantasy fountain to test out for possible Renn Fayre use, then some Utter Chaos spin rockets, a pack of helicopters, Magic Crystals, ground flowers, pop its (more on that later...) and Twister Stix.

On the 3rd I'm setting up a barge show with Wolverine and will stop by the stands in the area. I'll bring a few of these things to play with during the day, just so I can light some fuses. I might also see if I can find some small fountains, I have a bit of a soft spot for them, and hopefully they won't cost much, even at tribal stand prices. We shall see...

Epic fail from some stupid local news people... They managed to hurt themselves with a smoke bomb shaped like a rocket... At first I thought it was a real rocket and would explode on the ground given how hard she stuck it in the ground, but it is an OH legal item, meaning it sucks!

Video here

On Friday I helped Wolverine on a small show in Ephrata, WA, a town I've never been to before out in the middle of the state.

I only took one real picture, so here it is... Left to right we have Phil, Rod and Dan setting things up.

The show was for the town's 100th anniversary, in combination with a Walk For Life cancer research fundraiser. The audience was at the track while we were setting up in the baseball fields a distance away, so while it was a fairly small show, it was almost all 1.3G unlike most other shows Wolverine does for this budget range. Rod was worried about 1.4G items getting enough height, so other than four Screaming Meemie 500g cakes, everything else was 3" shells and 1.3G cakes.

The 1.3G cakes used were all new ones that hadn't been shot in the US yet, so we didn't know the exact timing on them. As a result, Rod decided to manually efire the show so that the next item could be started when the previous one ended. They wanted a longer show, so it wasn't real exciting in terms of design. Basically it was all from one position, with single 3" shells one at a time, then a 1.3G cake, then more shells, repeating and speeding up a bit at the end with a few finale chains at the end. This is obviously different from the shows Wolverine usually does, and Rod called it a "[company name not given for tact]-style show."

Setup was done by 4pm or so, but showtime wasn't until 11:20pm, so we had a LOT of time to kill. I'm glad I brought a book! The show was originally scheduled to start at 11:45pm and have the finale go at midnight to mark the very beginning of the 100th anniversary date, but we were happy it was moved up a little. This also meant that the show could be sped up a little so it would be more exciting because we didn't have to end at an exact time. The mayor was giving a speech (that we could not hear from our location) and the lights going out at the end was supposed to be the cue to start shooting, but the light guy accidentally turned them off early and we started the show in the middle of his speech! He was apparently a good sport about it and didn't mind not having to read the whole speech.

The show was enjoyable if unremarkable. It was interesting to see the wide range of performance among the 3" shells of several different brands. I don' t know which were which, but some had larger full breaks, while others didn't look much better (and some were worse) than a good 1.4G shell. The new 1.3G cakes were all very nice, especially some of the high shot count fan cakes.

I used Rod's camera to get video, so I didn't get anything on my own camera. I might eventually get a copy from him, but it could be a while...

Next up is July 4th! I'll be helping on the Hederson Bay show again, so that should be a lot of fun. I don't know what the show is like this year, but I'll be helping drop product on the 3rd and hopefully poking around Firecracker Alley a little bit while I'm there...

Half a ton of illegal fireworks seized from Boyle Heights home

Members of the San Gabriel Valley Arson Explosives Task Force have seized more than half a ton of illegal fireworks from a residential neighborhood in Boyle Heights, averting a potentially explosive and deadly situation, authorities said.

“Given the amount of fireworks in the residence, and the densely populated area ... we could have had a detonation of all that material, and it would have destroyed a good portion of the block, or several houses,” said Alhambra Fire Department Assistant Chief John Kabala.

The investigation originated after arson investigators from the Alhambra Fire Department found dangerous fireworks and unlawful explosives being advertised for sale on Craigslist, Kabala said. The department conducts regular checks of the free classified advertising site, Kabala said.

Full story here.

Now selling fireworks that are illegal in California (a "safe and sane" state) is stupid, and advertising them on craigslist is even stupider. But that doesn't give fire officials permission to lie and exaggerate. Later in the article they compare it to a drug bust, which is accurate in the level of fearmongering and BS... I posted a comment in the article saying that the fireworks were 1.4G consumer fireworks, by definition incapable of mass explosion, but it seems to have been deleted. I'll post it again and see what happens.

The demo was fairly small (32 items on the shoot list) and there weren't that many people there, but it was still a nice little pyro adventure even if I just watched. A few other PyroU guys were there, including mindset/Tim, tjfireworks, and I even ran into Tony and Larry, which I wasn't expecting!

The selling season at the reservation has started now, but because it is still early, only about half (or less) of the stands there were actually open. I walked around a little, but didn't look too closely because I wasn't going to spend any money and didn't want to deal with pushy salespeople. I was surprised at how many random people were there shooting fireworks, most in very unsafe ways. It wasn't a good place to be if you value your life! There were salute cakes, rockets, shells, and ground salutes going on left and right, and all other items being shot every once in a while. Some were in a field next to the stands, but others were spread all over the parking lot and you had to drive through them to get to the wholesale area. One guy was even angling large salute rockets over the demo site, which was not appreciated. I can only imagine how crazy it gets closer to (or on) the 4th, and wouldn't want to be anywhere near there without a very good reason.

The demo was mostly 200g and 500g cakes, there were a few shells and no rockets or candles. I didn't feel like they chose the best items they carry to demo, but they still had some nice stuff. Of the items they shot, I particularly liked BP Firedrake (sort of a big Pyro Alert with willows at the end), PYK Gold Brocade Bash (a classic, seen it many times before), PYK Party Like a Rock Star (good colors, mines, firing pattern), Glorious Tropical Typhoon (great yellow breaks, nice finale) and BP Uncle Sam's Answer (a very solid 16 shot, I just wish it had a finale).

I didn't see it, but at one point during the demo, a salute rocket was shot at a very low angle and broke near some people on the other side of the parking lot (not sure if this was the same guy as before). After the demo there was a police car and fire truck there, but I don't know what happened. They didn't seem to be in any rush, but I think they did end up taking somebody away in an ambulance. It isn't a very safe place to be...

The finale was a big puke, which was fun, but included some rather poorly chosen SMBs...

Video of every item can be found in my PyroU gallery...

On Friday I'm helping on a Wolverine show in Ephrata, WA, so I'll hopefully have a video and report by Sunday night. The show is all 1.3G, which will be different from most Wolverine shows I've helped on. Apparently it is stretched pretty thin, so we'll see...

This year was different from previous group shoots because it was a two-day event, as well as being at a slightly different location. Steve gets big points as usual for hosting the event.

Day one was single items, starting with more demo stuff that Steve is carrying as part of his wholesale deal with Hales. He shot some stuff I saw at the last demo, but also quite a few different items. Jeff/boaty also shot a lot of product, mainly Winda.

Spirit of 76 showed up with a big truck full of fireworks to deliver the WA portion of the PyroU group buy. They have been very helpful to PyroU and great to work with.

I got video of most single items that night, so just go look at my PyroU gallery for them if you haven't already...

I was planning on spending the night instead of doing the two hour drive home to turn around and do it again the next morning, but my car was already so full that I couldn't fit another case, and I planned to buy more! I drove back and unloaded, it was much more comfortable sleeping in a bed!

The next day I got there around lunch time and we had plenty of time to hang out and BS. We had a BBQ and plenty of time to buy more stuff and build boards for the group show.

We had various smaller items to play with during the daytime and I purchased some firecrackers and several different types of whistling rockets to kill some time, which were fun.

Finally it got dark (although in the interest of finishing at a reasonable time we started too early while it wasn't really dark yet) and we got to the important stuff. We had more single items to demo, including one each of most of the full cases I purchased from 76. I was happy to see that Spicy Hot performs very close to Global Dominance, and Hot Wire was awesome. Three at once is going to look great in my next show!

For the group show people made various boards and then we just lit them in sequence. It wasn't too fancy, but it was much simpler than trying to organize a ton of loose product and fuse it all or handfire every cake individually.

My board (which took two pieces of plywood) is shown here. It started with The New Hotness + Deja Blue + Bada Bing, then to 2x Super Stallion + 9x Megabanger comet cakes + 2x Wild West, ending on Fire in the Hole + 4x Thug. I hadn't built a board in a while and didn't spend much time measuring fuse, so I just hoped everything would go.

The group show ended up looking great, with Yuri/cracker54 lighting each board. Mine worked quite well, so I was happy! The show ended on around 500 shells in a bunch of racks and only one shell didn't fire! After the show was over, just around everyone helped clean up and we hung out around the fire of spent cakes for a while and went home happy.

Here is what I came home with, I'm pretty happy!



















And just so I have a video in this post (again, all are in my gallery), here is a cake I liked from the first night:

Good times were had! The end!

I was at the grocery store yesterday and this little thing caught my eye. It is like a regular pyrotechnic confetti shooter, but unlike the champange bottle style or the cardboard pistol style, this one is much sturdier, with a plastic case. Even better, it is a 6 shot revolver! I had to get it, so just for fun here is a video of shooting it in my hall. As you can tell, I was briefly amused.

It puts out a surprising quantity of confetti, which is reflective plastic instead of the rolled up tissue paper that never quite unrolls all the way. Keep your eyes open at the grocery or party supply store if you want some fun fake pyro...