{"id":1336,"date":"2008-07-05T12:38:52","date_gmt":"2008-07-05T19:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1336"},"modified":"2008-07-06T21:11:55","modified_gmt":"2008-07-07T04:11:55","slug":"blowing-stuff-up-on-the-4th-of-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1336","title":{"rendered":"Blowing Stuff Up On The 4th Of July"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trying to relive my childhood of blowing up M-80s and cherry bombs, I could not pass up an opportunity to work on a pyrotechnics crew organized by someone I know from my real job.<\/p>\n

We met at 9 AM in the parking lot of Big Canyon Country Club.<\/p>\n

Big Canyon is an exclusive country club for basically those in our society who are beyond rich.<\/p>\n

The current initial membership fee is $350,000 dollars just to join, $800 a month in fees and you have to wait for a current member to either die or sell you his membership.<\/p>\n

\"Pyro<\/p>\n

Pyro Don gave us a briefing on what the day was going to consist of – mainly, no smoking, no drinking, count the fingers you have now and compare that number to when you leave.<\/p>\n

One of the things he said was, “You are hired help here, don’t mingle with the members of the country club… and if a door is open, they go in first.”<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

We unloaded the bobtail truck full of the mortars and inspected and cleaned them of the remains of the last show.<\/p>\n

\"We<\/p>\n

The explosives come from the factory prenumbered per our order, so we sorted them out in groups of 50.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

After some sort of event on the main fairway ended at noon, we trucked everything down to just off the green and started nailing together the mortars per our blueprint.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Row one is on the left, row two on the right and at the end of that row is the grand finale.<\/p>\n

\"Golfers<\/p>\n

The golf course was still open, so we constantly had to worry about getting crippled by stray balls.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Fire Department kept watch on how we were assembling the mortars.<\/p>\n

\"Pyro<\/p>\n

Pyro Norm instructs us on how to wire the mortars.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The numbered bombs are placed on top of the numbered mortar tubes.<\/p>\n

\"I<\/p>\n

We then started wiring the mortars to the firing line – that’s the center piece with the terminal connectors on it.<\/p>\n

\"Me<\/p>\n

Me with a high explosive; I feel so macho now!<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Other crew members wire the grand finale.<\/p>\n

\"Final<\/p>\n

Final wire inspection.<\/p>\n

\"Tape<\/p>\n

After the mortars have been cleared as “good,” we taped over the ends to verify after the show that the round is empty.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The firing board sits 100 feet away from the first string of mortars.<\/p>\n

So, the question was posed, “Who wants to fire?”<\/p>\n

Nobody else raised their hand, so I did.<\/p>\n

I mean, who would turn down a job with the word “fire” in it?<\/p>\n

Pyro Don said, “Great!”<\/p>\n

Everyone else said, “If the show sucks it’s your fault.”<\/p>\n

\"I<\/p>\n

I sat at the firing board checking all the connections.<\/p>\n

The firing board has connection leads that go to the charges in the mortars.<\/p>\n

A firing pen is touched to the ordered leads and connects the circuit, setting off the propellant charge.<\/p>\n

The board has a “test” and “live” setting and an on\/off switch; Test just checks the connection without detonating the charge.<\/p>\n

We had four bad connections that were fixed.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The finale crew protects the setup from falling burning embers by covering it with Aluminum foil.<\/p>\n

The mortars were all set up.<\/p>\n

\"Now<\/p>\n

It’s chow time.<\/p>\n

\"Now<\/p>\n

Now it’s the boring part – waiting for dusk.<\/p>\n

\"On<\/p>\n

On a trip up to use the servants’ toilets, I scoped out the ultra-rich man’s 4th of July party.<\/p>\n

I noticed that the super rich are the best looking people in existence; I didn’t see one ugly person and not one fat person.<\/p>\n

A waitress at the Country Club was so excited to meet the person who was actually going to fire the rounds that she almost fainted; but, I tend to have that effect on women anyway.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/p>\n

One last self portrait before the show; Pyro Don radioed the DJ at the party telling him we have two minutes to show time.<\/p>\n

I put on a set of head phones and listened to the multi-band queue track that syncs the fireworks to the music.<\/p>\n

So, while everyone else is going to be watching the fireworks, I’m going to be staring at a board, and while everyone else is listening to the music, I’m going to be hearing, “Get ready to fire…fire one…two……..three, four, five……..six, seven, eight…”<\/p>\n

I set off the first mortar … Boom!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The concussion hit me; I thought, “Hey being this close is cool.”<\/p>\n

\"Fireworks.\"<\/p>\n

I was not down wind from the fallout.<\/p>\n

So for almost twenty one minutes, I just connected the circuit with the numbered leads when the queue track instructed me to.<\/p>\n

\"Fireworks\"<\/p>\n

When I set off the grand finale and hit the last firing lead, I was able to look up at the last minute to see our work.<\/p>\n

The audience went wild with their applause.<\/p>\n

Pyro Don went down to check the area for unexploded ordinance; every charge fired which is apparently very rare.<\/p>\n

He had to put a few fires out – just “cake boxes” (clustered boxes of mortars) that had caught on fire.<\/p>\n

\"Pieces<\/p>\n

The area was clear; pieces of fireworks were littered all over the place.<\/p>\n

I asked Pyro Don, “Who disassembles and cleans all this crap up?”<\/p>\n

“We do.”<\/p>\n

\"It<\/p>\n

It took us two hours to disassemble the mortars and repack the truck.<\/p>\n

So, after a 14 and a half hour day, I was finally able to pack up and go home.<\/p>\n

I had fun, got fed, a free cap and pay that compares to a Divemaster – but this night I detonated more explosives than I could have ever hoped to in my entire life.<\/p>\n

The next time I see a fireworks show, I will have so much appreciation for what goes in to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trying to relive my childhood of blowing up M-80s and cherry bombs, I could not pass up an opportunity to work on a pyrotechnics crew organized by someone I know from my real job. We met at 9 AM in the parking lot of Big Canyon Country Club. Big Canyon is an exclusive country club […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}