Only Bluerunner stories for me, pls. (DBO)

by bluerunner , Music City, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, 19:02 (212 days ago) @ Revenant1988

New Years Eve a couple of years ago. I have been doing the fireworks for Gatlinburg, TN for July 4th and NYE. I build a bunch of panels with pyro attached that I mount up and down the sides and top of the Space Needle. We're talking tens of thousands of dollars worth of custom pyro. The show is pre-programmed and everything is wired to control modules I mount in the fire escape and one elevator shaft.

I do multiple checks of my equipment after setup. All was good. It gets close to showtime so I take my spot perched in the fire escape midways up the tower. Tens of thousands of people below me. News stations with cameras set up around, looking up at me. A band is playing in a parking lot below me.

10 minutes to midnight I key on my remote and arm everything. Everything shows connected. All good. I carefully set my remote down on the fire escape stairs and listen to the band

1 minute to midnight. The ball they drop on a wench from the observation deck is passing me. The band wraps up and everyone is cheering. All eyes on the tower.

I look down at my remote on the stairs to pick it up. It suddenly goes blank. All lights off. Dead.

I grab it and shake it. Nothing. I key it off and back on. It flickers and dies. I keep doing this, but it keeps dying. Then it do it again and get a low battery warning. Impossible. These are brand new batteries and I did the system check with them.

I reach in my pocket for backup batteries. None there. I realize they're in my toolbox, 400 steps above me.

Crowd is getting louder. The ball is almost there. 20 seconds? I can't see the clock from my position. I'm desperate. This is a disaster.

Then suddenly, a thought hit me. When my TV remote batteries are low, I open the cover and roll them. Sometimes that works. I rip the cover off the back and furiously rub the batteries. I flip it over and turn the key. It starts booting up! I hear numbers being shouted below. I still have to rearm it. A second boot sequence. Come on. Come on. We're almost there. Countdown is going.

The crowd reaches 1 and then it's midnight. I mash the trigger button on the remote. Explosions race past me up the tower. Then I hear stuff on the roof firing. It worked!