Hi
New Guy back from old time… Real name is Simon Chan.
I always grew up with the sparklers, snaps, firecrackers and bottle rockets. When I was younger since I lived in town most of my life, we always went to buddies places in the country and we could light off whatever we wanted.
My hometown in Ohio growing up was the home of Springfield Fireworks, which learning now many years later - that it was an awesome shop, that had great prices (not wholesale but good retail) and even had a large available inventory. Friends and their families would pool together about 600 or so and buy a few boxes of shells, some cakes, and roman candles and we always had a good time.
It wasn’t until College when I got more serious about it and a buddy who lives in North Carolina was like “hey dude - come down here with me and lets get going on this Pyro thing…”
I was in college, not sure what I wanted to do with my life, and decided ya know - this might be something cool. When I explained it to my family that I was thinking about going off to be a professional Pyro, I was met with an extreme amount of disagreement of my potential career choice. I come from a somewhat traditional Asian family, and already wasn’t going to school to be a Doctor, Engineer, or Lawyer - and the not-so-best student of my family - soooo - I got scared and went back to school and got a degree and here we are.
I walked away and have just spent most of the years watching fireworks, always wanting to do them, but not being able to due to the timing, my budget, and life has that funny way of getting in the way sometimes, but this year I finally had the opportunity knock on my door and we were off to the races!
I bought a single Cobra 18r2 and 18m module and made my first manually fired show. I bought everything and got it setup and lit my first home show and the feeling of emotions just rushed in and i’m mad at myself for not doing it for so long but we’re back, with the hunger to learn and improve!
Glad to be a part of this and hope to help see future things happen to keep growing awareness, safety, and overall fun and memories it creates!
) Welcome to the community, I’m new here myself so we can learn together!