What happens with a former fireworks display company owner has a birthday? A huge show of course!
I got a phone call a couple weeks ago from John asking if I'd help on a show for his birthday. I hadn't had any smoke in a while so I would have done it anyway, but when he told me they would be shooting 12" nothing would keep me away.
The show had about 2,500 shells, including several 12" shells and a gold section several minutes long. There were probably 25 people helping set up that morning, the racks and sandboxes were done in previous days. The shells were all ematched and marked ahead of time, with tubes marked with corresponding numbers, so setup went fairly smoothly and efficiently. All we had to do that day was drop the shells in the right tube and wire everything up, so after about four and a half hours we were almost done. I had been hoping to get a picture of myself holding a 12" shell because there probably won't be many chances for that in the future, but they had already been dropped the previous day.
There were plenty of pyros there and I had some work to do back home, so I left once things were mostly set up and returned about 45 minutes before showtime (7:30, it sure gets dark early now, a nice change from summer as long as weather cooperates). This time I got to just sit back in my chair and watch the show, without doing any post-show work.
The show was efired with a nailboard and was a lot of fun. It wasn't tightly scripted, but there was some good variety, big salutes, great big shells, nice false finales and a huge finale. The several minutes of gold was a little repetitive and went a little long in my opinion, but was still pretty cool. The show lasted over 30 minutes, which is probably the longest show I've seen and things were always happening.
(Video links at bottom of post)
Another super late post, I suck at blogging, etc etc. I'll keep this short.
This was a show with Wolverine for Bothell River Days, shot at the high school sports field. The show was 95% 1.4G, with a bunch of 1.75" salutes mixed in (Andy designed this show, so of course there were lots of salutes!). We had a lot of ematching to do, including XO shells, and ended up a lot more than were actually scripted. The one thing I was excited about was two of the old Swimming Pearls in the show, but one of them didn't fire! It was still great to see the old classic... The show was pretty good (similar to the Fircrest show below), but the music got all screwed up. The plan was for the guy in the sports booth to play the music the same time we started the firing script, but he messed up and the music was way off. Next time we'll bring our own speakers so we don't have to rely on others...
Lots of ematched XO shells:
One of the main cake positions:
If you look at the date on the last post, you can see I've been pretty lazy about blogging recently, even with a couple shows to post. I've had a lot of other stuff going on that hasn't left much room for pyro and now the season is pretty much over! Hopefully I find a few chances to light some stuff soon and get back in the groove.
Anyway, here is a show that happened more than a month ago and I'm just now posting... I'll just make this a quick one without too many comments just to get it done. This was the second of two shows Wolverine West did at Fircrest this summer, though I didn't make it to the first. The show was almost all 1.4G except for a bunch of 1.75" salutes and other similar small 1.3G items, as well as the same mines used in the Covington show. Here are a few pictures of the setup (click to embiggen):
Picture 2 - Lots of salutes and other shells.
Picture 3 - One of two mirrored cake positions.
Picture 4 - Center cake position.
Picture 5 - Overall setup with the event in the background.
The show was chaotic but fun, I'll just skip right to the video (direct links):
Part 1 and Part 2
Next late post coming soon about the show I helped with in Bothell...
This was my second year helping on this show (last year here) and there weren't really any surprises this time. Unlike last year, this show was all 1.4, although we had some 1.4S items (aka not 1.4G, available to consumers) that I'd never worked with before. With how dry things have been, there were concerns over fire danger, so combined with the usual budget pressures, there was no 1.3G in this show.
I got there at noon to find that the others were early and already had the product all unloaded from the trailer! The had
We had three cake positions, which also had a few comets, and five mine/fountain positions in front of that. The center position (pic above) had most of the bigger breaking stuff like Nine, several Pow Bam and lots of fanned cakes like Thug and Pyro Picasso. There was also a UP The Big Guns, which I hadn't seen in person before and was looking forward to. The center position also had pairs of Gimmie Shimmy, Coconut Rings and Femme Fatale, but we spread them out to either side for some crossing effects.
A little in front of the cake positions were the non-breaking items spread out in five positions (picture left with Phil and Dan), which included the 50mm mines, 200g Frost Burn mine cakes, and a few fountains and gerbs. A close-up view of the 50mm comets is here, the mines look just the same.
By the time we were nearly done setting up at around 4pm, I got a call from my wife that she was locked out of the apartment almost an hour away back in Seattle,
Like the Ephrata show, I ended up on video duty with Rod's camera, so I didn't get my own video to post. Hopefully I'll get it from him before too long, but he is pretty busy these days... The music was the same as the Redmond show the week before (I was at my sister's wedding in Alaska), but I couldn't really hear it from where I was filming from. I was able to hear the opener, which was the Indiana Jones theme and looked very cool with mines and comets matched to the music. The rest of the show all looked good, even if I've seen most of the product many times before! Pyro Piscasso was used several time and always looks good, apparently what looks like a flowerpot in the last volley is intentional, it was in every cake shot. Pow Bam was awesome as always, and Kaliedoscope Z still looks great, even if the factory didn't slow it down like they were supposed to (I like it better fast!). The concussion mortars sounded good to me, but I'm sure they were far louder and more surprising to the crowd at hald the distance! My only criticism of the show is that the finale seemed a little ligth, but it was a very nice show overall. We had two items not fire, and burned a nice little patch inthe dry grass with a fountain, but that was kind of expected. Hopefully I'll get the video before too long, I'd like to watch it again myself!
I was up at my cabin this weekend and wanted to play with a few fountains. It is very dry up there and "technically" (....) there is a burn ban, so I needed to be extra careful. I decided not to try out the larger BC fountains I purchased at Firecracker Alley this year, and would stick to the much smaller Jack In The Box and Happiness fountains (as well as keeping the hose on hand). Despite the different sizes of all the fountains in that picture, Purple Rain will probably be the best performer... I also lit a box of the tiny Amazing Fountains on July 4th and found them quite entertaining. Anyway, here is my sweet pyro for the weekend...
Happiness Fountain (Phantom) - Probably a generic, but this one has a Phantom label. I wasn't expecting whistle in something this small and it kind of annoyed me (especially because I was trying to be sneaky). It was actually kind of impressive how many effects they fit in that little thing. It came in a box of six, but they are all the same color and probably the same effect.
Glad to see that these stupid kids were caught after such egregious misuse of fireworks... (Link)SACRAMENTO - School surveillance cameras and an anonymous tipster are believed to have played an integral role in helping authorities track down four juveniles blamed for starting a small fire using fireworks at a local elementary school.
Sacramento Fire Department officials say they've identified and cited four juveniles for an incident at John Bidwell Elementary School in which a small area carpet was damaged by fireworks set off on school property.
Neighbor Lights Illegal Firework After Dispute
"I know! I'll light one of my illegal fireworks to annoy an already pissed off neighbor!" This image seems appropriate. (Link)SAGINAW TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- A Michigan State Bomb Squad unit was called to a Saginaw Township apartment early Tuesday to investigate suspicions activity after one of its resident lit an illegal firework and threatened to blow up the complex.
Police said the 41-year-old man lit a three-inch mortar on his porch in retaliation after a neighbor asked him to turn down his music.
On a different note...
Chase won't pay for Seattle's Lake Union fireworks next year
Seattle could be without a Fourth of July fireworks show next year if no one steps forward to sponsor it, the show's organizer said Thursday.
JPMorgan Chase & Co., which acquired Washington Mutual last fall, paid for the bulk of last weekend's show but said it won't commit to sponsoring the event again.
Will my city have a fireworks show next year? This is the only big show in the city, so it'll be interesting to see what happens. I'm sure they'll manage to get some sponsors, but it seems that $500,000 is unlikely, so we'll be seeing a smaller show. I watched the video of this past 4th the other day, but that would be a whole different post... (Link)
Friday is the Covington show with Wolverine, look for pics and video Sunday night or Monday, I'll be gone hiking most of the weekend.
Weather was great, with a light breeze on and off to help keep us from getting too hot. I was going to be on the barge for the show again, but this time Dan was the lead for the show and Rod was going to be on the shore filming. We had a smaller crew than the day before because there was less to do, and Dan and I were the only ones on the barge during the show.
The tug showed up with guests to watch the show, including another freelance photographer who worked with the local paper. She took a few pictures of Dan and a couple of me, so who knows, maybe I'll be in a local paper that I forgot the name of! Two other crew members, Neil and Roger, were in the boat circling the safety area to keep people out, and it took us a while to track down the owner of one large boat that anchored way too close to the barge (we weren't going to shoot with the boat there even if nobody was on it).
There was a little difficulty getting the show to start exactly on cue with the music, but it looked pretty good from where I was standing! We couldn't hear the music, so we just watched the pyro and tried to be ready in case anything when wrong. Like last year we had the blast shack, plus protective clothing, hard hats, eye protection, and life vests in case we went in the water. We did have a couple low breaks, but nothing too serious. The new cakes all looked great, and there were lots of nice shells in the show. We also angled pairs of the non-swimming Swimming Pearls 1.4G cakes out from all four sides of the barge for one part of the show, which looked pretty cool. I had my camera to get video, but I accidentally changed the setting to low quality (160x120), which isn't worth bothering with. So here is just the finale in low quality, hopefully I'll get a copy of Rod's video eventually.
If you google "firecraker alley," my blog post from last year is the second result!
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.
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...
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...
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.
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...
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.
I'll be on the barge during the show like last year, and hopefully getting video again.
Have a great Independence Day tomorrow, everyone!
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...
