Professional Pyrotechnician

Yes, I am a professional pyrotechnician. I was on a barge on the Willamette River in downtown Portland shooting off the largest fireworks show in Oregon on the 4th. Pretty cool stuff. Rob and I went down at 8:30 Wednesday morning, and spent the entire day prepping mortars, loading shells, running electric cabelling, foiling and securing triggers. Good times. I love the sweet smell of gunpowder in the morning. (sorry, no napalm). At times throughout the morning, we nearly passed out due to the heat. Despite warnings to lather up with sunblock, which I did, we worked non-stop from 8:30-4 before stopping for lunch and reapplication of sunblock, I missed a couple of spots, and am sporting some nice burn spots on my ankle, neck, etc. While it has a tough day of hard work, it was worth it as we were able to cruise down the river on a barge full of explosives. Then to see the crouds of cheering people as we passed under the bridges was pretty cool. The show was pretty amazing... especially sitting behind some safety shelters on the back of the tugboat. The show was for the Portland Blues Festival, so what seemed like the entire city lined the banks of the river to watch the show. Sadly, the shells were just a tad too loud for us to enjoy the music choreographed to the show. Shucks. Maybe next year, I'll bring a radio. Which reminds me, Rob and I had a fun conversation topic: if you could choreograph a fireworks show to any song, what would it be? My current top choice: Remy Zero's "The Glorious #1"... epic