HAPPY NEW YEAR!
It was that one night that I’ve always been waiting for every year. New year’s eve is full of excitement for me because I love fireworks a lot. In the past few years I’ve set-up a mini-fireworks display of my own, however small it may be.This year was no different. (Although…we all watch the fireworks display by affluent families in the neighboring subdivision, as well as that of TRACE College/Suites.) I’m glad I’m employed, I managed to set-aside some money. I bought two cakes, a 36 shot cake and 49 shot cake, of 3/4″ shells, as well as a tube of triple shot, 3″ shell willow for the finale.
I had the entire assembly set-up and ready to fire before the display of TRACE College goes off. The cakes were amazing, shooting the shells higher than I expected, exploding with bigger, more rounded breaks than I anticipated. Plus, the stars were very bright, and the effects were all assorted. Total firing time for the cakes was around two and a half minutes, sweet!
But then the finale came. It was time for the triple shot willow. As the fire passed from the cake to the fuse of the tube, I held my breath. A few seconds more, the first shot was fired with a loud boom, high up into the air it broke into a golden willow. I was delighted! Then it was the second shot. I felt that something was wrong, I was hoping at that moment that the mount would hold up.
Sadly, it didn’t. The moment the second shot fired of, the tube (and mount) tumbled and flew by around 10 to 15 meters. I dreaded experiencing misfires, specially with large 3″ shells as I know how much firepower is packed in those small balls of kraft paper. A soon as the tube went flying, I ran away, hoping that others around me would follow, but they didn’t. So I shouted at the top of my lungs as we only had around three to four seconds before the shell explodes. They heard me… and realizing the seriousness of that situation, they heeded my call. Then the second shell exploded. Worse, it was the time rain willow, stronger burst and longer burning stars with sparking trails. The stars reached quite far, about 40 meters. Thank God no one got burned. I knew I should have spent more time preparing the set-up and should have secured the mortar in place.
But it wasn’t over, there was still a third shot. I was expecting it, but there was none. It made the situation much more worse. I shouted out to those at the far side of the blast that there’s still an unexploded shell. I am so sorry that they couldn’t pass through to watch the TRACE fireworks which had started then. After a few minutes, I thought it was safe now to pass. I went looking for the last shell, but there was no sign of it. My neighbors saw a shell, and when I inspected it, its shape was still intact. They said they even picked up the thing right after the second explosion! So I told them that it must have been the unexploded shell, so they should not play with it. A few minutes later, as everyone else were already enjoying the sky paintings, I took a pail of water and doused of the shell that we found just to be sure it won’t explode.
For some reason I thought it best that I throw water into the tube as well. I’m not sure if the shell that we found was indeed the unexploded shell. It could have been that the last shell was still in the tube, or was thrown of to some other place. The following day, my suspicion was reinforced. The ball/shell that we found was empty, it had a crack with burn marks. But the tube was empty. I looked around for the shell, there was no sign of it. Even now I don’t know what happened to it. I’ll probably check again later. I’ll try to search in the bushes.
Anyway, the photos I posted with this blog entry are shots of TRACE College’s fireworks display. The last few shots are overexposed as I wasn’t expecting that much fireworks exploding at the same time. The skies of LB lit up like daylight! (well, not exactly….). HAPPY NEW YEAR!
