Baby news!!!!!! Nu (La-on’s younger brother, and the manager of the Lamai shop) and his wife Bua have just become proud parents of a beautiful baby girl – born 2 hours ago! Mum and baby are both fine, and Nu is floating around with a big grin on his face! lol Pictures will be posted later, and I make no apologies for the fact that I am a soppy git, and adore babies!!! he he Congratulations to Nu and Bua!
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Mr.b
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Mr.b
Well…. Marc and Elke – on a belated honeymoon – have now left the shores of our sunny island, probably hunting for more firework shops in Bali!! lol We had a great time with them both, and us ‘big kids’ (ie: Marc and myself) had great fun shooting a couple of 5 and 6 inch diamater mortars on the beach in Maenam… Marc was grinning from ear to ear, and – to be honest – I wasn’t much different! lol Even after all this time, I still get such incredible enjoyment from shooting fireworks… even more so when accompanyed by a fellow pyro-maniac! he he
It was great to spend some time with you both, and La-on and I hope you enjoy the rest of your honeymoon!!!
Marc and Elke - true blue pyromaniacs to the core!!
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Fireworkknight
ahh, congratulations to you both!
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Mr.b
Thank you ‘Fireworkknight’… by the way people… if you want to see some cracking firework display vids, visit ‘Fireworkknight’s website (fantasticfireworks.co.uk)… I would kill to be a team member on one of their shoots lol
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Mr.b
Aleks and Sina first contacted us a while ago, and were planning to get married on Samui. They wanted a ‘D.I.Y.’ wedding, and so did an amazing job in organizing everything themselves… and there is a lot of paper-work involved! Apart from that, the paper-work then has to get translated into Thai, and then taken to a million different offices to get official stamps on it… not an easy task for the feint-hearted!
Everything was sorted out by the time they both got to Koh Samui, and we duly carted them both off to the ‘Town Hall’ on Samui to present their paperwork and get that very special wedding certificate.
Well… that was the plan anyway! Unfortunately there was a bit of confusion when they were getting the completed paperwork in Bangkok, and they left the office (thinking everything was done) before they were given the ‘official’ (ie: stamped) copies of all their documents! All they had when they came to Samui were un-stamped photocopies of their documents!!! Oh Dear!!
Of course, the officials on Samui couldn’t accept the documents without the official stamps, so Aleks and Sina could’t get married… and… to compound things, they only had 48 hours left to collect the officially stamped documents from Bangkok!
Well… to cut a long story short… La-on asked one of her friends living in Bangkok to whizz around to the various offices and collect the official documents on their behalf, and – after a seriously busy day taxi’ing around Bangkok and greasing the appropriate palms, June (La-on’s friend in Bangkok) finally managed to get everything sorted and sent to Samui… Just in time!
So… happy ending and big smiles all around… and Aleks and Sina will never forget their wedding on Samui… complete with all the drama! lol
It was great to be able to help them ‘Tie the knot’, and we all had a great time celebrating their special day… with lots of beer being drunk, and lots of photographs taken! I have put only a few of them below….
CONGRATULATIONS ALEKS AND SINA!!! It really was great to meet you both, and I hope that our paths will cross again soon. La-on and I would like to wish you both the happiest of futures together, and hope that your love for each other never fades.
Aleks and Sina with their coveted marriage certificate!
Aleks and Sina with La-on at Wat By Laem, receiving Monk's blessings
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Mr.b
Last night was great fun! Marcel was having a birthday party with a few friends, and had bought some fireworks for the occassion. Initially Marcel and his friends were going to shoot the fireworks themselves, but jumped at our offer to shoot them for him – free of charge – so that he could relax and enjoy his own firework show, and also to ensure that everything was done safely.
After setting the fireworks up on spare land close to Marcel’s villa, I asked him if he would like to shoot the show himself, using one of our wireless remote firing systems… big grins all round!! I do believe we have a closet pyro-freak in the making here!!!
Marcel had a great time pressing the remote buttons to shoot his fireworks, and I hope it will give him yet another excellent memory of his Birthday Firework Display!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARCEL !!!
Marcel at the helm!
Off we go! lol
An awfull 'out of focus' photo (all my fault sadly!) of Marcel's birthday-bash friends!
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Mr.b
Jeffrey (see previous post) has been kind enough to send us a couple of pictures showing Siaw Lei (Jeffrey’s future wife!) posing next to the 2 bear Lancework set-pieces we created especially for them – at Jeffrey’s request. The yellow bear looks slightly the worse for wear after use! lol
Siaw Lei and the Blue Bear Lancework piece
Siaw Lei with the Yellow Bear. Inbetween the bears was the question which brings fear into most men's hearts.... 'WILL YOU MARRY ME?' The answer this time was - of course - 'YES'!!!
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Mr.b
Great to hear from you again Marc! I bet you are counting down the days until your holiday back here on Samui! Never mind… it will be worth the wait… just think of all those lovely fireworks you are going to shoot! The first beers are on me my friend!
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Mr.b
Samui is a great place to get married, as, despite the fact it is so built up compared to only 5 or so years ago, there are still some beautiful, quiet and romantic beaches here. Obviously others feel the same too, as the number of weddings is increasing month by month. This month – apart from the private parties and other shoots – we have 12 weddings booked! I must admit that I think it is great to be a part of someone’s very special day. It is so romantic to see so many people so in love and having a wonderful wedding on a ‘tropical island beach’. I really do feel that it is an honour to be part of such an important event in people’s lives, and it is great to think that we are giving them yet another wonderful memory of their ‘special day’.
The Firework Shop – for Safety – Quality – Service…. For Weddings : Corporate Events : Birthdays : or simply for Fun! -
Mr.b
La-on (‘Laarn’), myself, and the staff of both our firework shops would like to wish everyone – particularly our fellow ‘Pyro-nuts’! – the merriest of Christmases as well as the healthiest and happiest New Year!
Despite our best efforts to limit ourselves to only a handful of shoots this New Year’s Eve, we have ended-up with 8… not being able to turn down those who didn’t realise that they had left booking us way too late!
Putting our foot down at 8 shoots didn’t quite work either, as we are also ‘assisting’ a further 4 shoots (2 more resorts and 2 private parties) by lending them each a wireless remote firing system so that they can shoot their own fireworks (bought from us of course!) safely – and have fun pressing buttons of course! We will be setting the 4 shoots up for the customers, and getting everything ready for them so that all they have to do is switch on the remotes and get ready to start shooting at midnight!Last week ‘Blue Team’ shot a wonderful display for the opening of a resort in Lamai… they made me really proud! (Aaaaw! lol). It was a ‘Big Do’, with some rather important guests – including a good friend of ours, the Chief of Police of Samui – so we were determined to give the owner – Boris – a really special event!
The firework display was to be set to music – Boris’ choice, which – although great for fireworks – consisted of 2 songs, each well over 5 minutes long! The actual display was going to be around 4 mins 30 secs in total, so I had to cut down the music to suit (I use a great free software programme called Audacity). It took quite a few hours of playing around and cutting the music, but I eventually managed to get in down to a total of 4 mins 30 secs. Now all we had to do was choreograph the fireworks!I must admit that I do like choreographing firework shows… it brings out my artistic side lol… !!!
We also made Boris a very special Lancework set-piece, consisting of a damn-near perfect representation of the resort’s logo and name… it looked great!BUT… I am a firm believer that ‘self-praise is no recommendation’, and therefore I am never really relaxed or happy until after the firework display, when we can judge the success of our hard work and efforts by the reactions of both our client and his opening ceremony guests. We may believe we are wonderful at what we do, but if our client isn’t 100% delighted with our efforts, then we have – I believe – failed them.
Fortunately that has never been the case – we have no place for arrogance or self-importance – as we always put the needs of our customers first.
Thankfully, Boris was more than delighted with the choreographed firework display, telling us that his guests all agreed that the show ‘was fantastic’! Ok… NOW I’m happy!
The sequencers performed very well during the show, and showed their worth during a particularly frenetic bit of the music, which would have been difficult (impossible) to keep up with (fireworks-wise) by manually pressing buttons! Great bit of kit those sequencers, and we may well be investing in a few more over the coming months.
I will try and get some video of our New Year’s machinations up on the site, but, untill then, keep smiling, and enjoy the pyromaniacs main night of the year… New Year’s Eve…. YEEEEE-HAAAAA!!!
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Mr.b
Toys & Tools
This is a picture of a couple of the sequencers we use to ‘fine-tune’ the choreography of our firework displays, particularly useful when choreographing to music, when the shots need to be accurately timed.
Any number of sequencers can be joined together, with each cue being completely programmable from 0.1 – 9.9 seconds between shots.
We have yet to discover how many fireworks can be reliably fired from each cue, but I will be reporting back!
Great toys… and great tools! Yet something else that shows The Firework Shop to be true pyro professionals… no ‘hobby’/home-made equipment for us! (Although there is nothing wrong with home-made or hobby equipment… if you shooting for fun and friends once in a while… but professional pyrotechnics requires professional equipment… simple as!
10 cue programmable sequencers
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Mr.b
Full Moon, Full Eclipse, Full on! :)
Strange day yesterday! We had two meetings with prospective clients in the shop, and both turned out to be absolute firework nuts, so – instead of taking 15/20 minutes, both turned out to be 2 hour long ‘chats’! It is great to meet fellow pyro-nuts… those that really do know what they are talking about… but it is a fairly rare occurrence, however, yesterday was ‘pyro-heaven’ for me… bloody great! lol. The first meeting was with a guy who is opening a new hotel/resort on the island, right on the beach, and he wanted fireworks as part of the opening ceremony later this month. He knew exactly what he wanted, and, for a change, this was a guy who’s expectations were not only realistic, but possible!
The shoot will include a beautiful Lancework set-piece (nobody else on Samui can offer Lancework, which made us the first choice), which will be followed by a choreographed 2.5 minute firework display, set to a piece of music which is just perfect for fireworks!
It is great to choreograph shows like this, and the fully programmable sequencers that we have make it possible to time individual cues down to a tenth of a second! We also came up with loads of other ideas that will go towards making the opening of this hotel/resort something really special! I will, of course, post the video and more details of the shoot after the event.
The second meeting was for an Aussie guy and his Thai girlfriend, who are getting married soon. I have never met a guy so enthusiastic about life in general, and his enthusiasm was infectious! After only 10 minutes or so we were chatting away like two old friends… as though we had known each other for years! He was not just a ‘character’, but a clever, adept, and intelligent guy who was ‘driven’.. but managed to balance his life with a morality that made him want to help others and share his good fortune. An amazing guy who I am sure will be cropping up in my posts again in the future (things in the pipeline and all that lol).
After an hour or so we both realised that we had chatted about everything EXCEPT his wedding! Great stuff!
In the end he simply told us that he ‘knew that we knew what we were talking about’ and so trusted us implicitly. Essentially we had as big a budget as we needed to put on a firework display that would last 5 minutes! Here was a guy who had visited every shop that sold fireworks, but decided that only The Firework Shop could deliver… and, coming from someone as knowledgeable as him, this is a complement indeed!Still buzzing after meeting ‘Mushrooman’ (his nickname) I came home to be welcomed by the three pooches and my various assortment of birds… all screaming for food (it was past their normal feeding time), and then my good friend Bom turned-up to tell me about the full eclipse of the moon later that night. So – after feeding the animals – Bom and I settled down with a few Gin and Tonics to wait for the eclipse to start. Boy was it worth the wait!
As the moon was around half-eclipsed (is that a word?) there were firecrackers (and a few guns) going off all around us… people ‘shooting at the moon’ for good luck! Truly amazing Thailand! lol -
Mr.b
Fireworks are dangerous, and there is no room for arrogance and big egos. So… who CAN you trust? Koh Samui’s original pyro-experts… Koh Samui’s true pyro-professionals…
The Firework Shop, that’s who!
No bullshit, no big egos, no arrogance… just the safest, most exciting, and best value fireworks and firework displays on Koh Samui… shot by a trained and experienced professional-minded staff team.
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Mr.b
Well…..! Our teams are all booked-up for New Year’s Eve (and have been for some time). However, we promised to limit ourselves this year to only 6 shoots on New Year’s Eve, simply due to the fact that the logistics of operating more than 6 teams is a *^%$# nightmare! lol We also (quite literally) ‘sell-out’ completely on New Year’s Eve anyway, so limiting our shoots is not a problem… in fact, we would make more money by NOT shooting displays!
BUT… we have to keep our teams busy, and shooting displays is what we do best, and – at the end of the day – is the most awesome fun too! However, New Year’s Eve is still some weeks away, and we have quite a few bookings to keep us busy before then (mainly weddings – which I love, as it is always great to be a part of such a special day in people’s lives). So keep an eye-out for the best firework shows on Samui, with the biggest and most exciting firework displays… as they are sure to be ours! On the other-hand, if you see a display ‘padded-out’ with lots of low-level multi-shot cakes (used in an effort to make the display last longer), then you know it isn’t a display from The Firework Shop!
The Firework Shop… ‘You deserve the most professional, the safest, and the most exciting and dramatic firework display for your special event… no matter what size your budget… so don’t settle for anything less than the most professional, the safest, and the most exciting firework displays from Samui’s professional pyro-experts – The Firework Shop.No souvenirs… No trinkets… No ‘B.S.’… only the best firework displays (and best value fireworks) on Samui!
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Mr.b
Just for clarity I thought that I should post a couple of pics of a few of the wireless remote firing systems we use… A ‘certain person’ on Samui brags of having ’22 electronic firing units’.. these being exactly the same kind units that The Firework Shop actually lends to customers who want to shoot their own fireworks… the units being very nice and easy to use ‘hobbyist’ systems for amateurs wanting to shoot their own fireworks. However, they are a far cry from the professional wireless firing systems that are used by The Firework Shop to shoot the professional displays we provide… 2 kinds of our wireless remote control firing systems can be seen in the pics below…
This wireless remote firing system is capable of utilizing 10 'slave' units (four of which are shown), with each 'slave' capable of firing more than 100 fireworks... meaning that this system can fire more than 1,000 fireworks from up to 10 different places, at the same time! (Rather more than '24' eh? lol)
Another example of a wireless remote firing system we sometimes use... with the control desk having the ability to shoot 10 different 'sets' of firing units, each 'set' consisting of 12 cues, and each cue capable of firing up to 5 fireworks (still with me? lol). This means that each of these systems can fire up to 600 fireworks each!
These are the small hand-held wireless systems that we rent to customers wanting to shoot their own fireworks. Each system can fire up to 24 fireworks (as used by the contributer below). They are great little 'hobbyist' systems for amateurs to use, and are therefore easy to operate... as 'Mr.R' (who commented below) will surely know
For info. that might be of interest to other ‘pyro-nuts’ (like myself!) out there in web-land, we also use numerous 10 cue sequencers along-side the wireless remotes… each sequencer being fully-programmable!
Just so you know! lol lol
Have a great day!-
John
Nice!
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Mr.b
Brilliant! Another supplier of fireworks on Koh Samui has copied whole paragraphs from our website! He he… priceless! lol… talk about ‘imitation being the best form of flattery’… really made my day
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Mr.b
The video showing me ‘knocking together’ a nailboard-type firework remote control is (finally) up.
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robert
i guess a hand made shitty unit like that is good enough for you allan,but compared to the gear i have its amateurish,i have 22 electronic firing units .
got your sandbags ready in lamai?
MR RNOTE: with reference to the post above by ‘Mr. R’… To see examples of some of the professional wireless remote systems we (The Firework Shop) use, look around on this page… 22 ‘electronic firing units’ indeed… HAH! lol lol
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Mr.b
Hello Robert Taylor… ‘Robert’ comments regularly like this on our sites… he has a shop on Samui that sells nick-nacks and ‘antiques’, and likes to think of himself as ‘God’s gift’ to the world of fireworks. He is plainly very jealous of our successes and reputation on Koh Samui. His comment about the ‘shitty remote’ refers to the home-made remote video I posted a while back. Of course, being slightly slow in the brain department, Robert/Ralph has completely missed the point of the video, which was made so that fellow hobbyist pyro-nuts out there in ‘web-land’ could see that they could make their own remote fairly easily and cheaply for themselves, without having to buy the expensive professional wireless remote firing systems similar to the ones we use on our shoots.
At the risk of getting into a ‘My willy is bigger than yours’ type discussion, his 22 electronic firing units pale into insignificance compared to our 1,200 channel wireless remote firing systems – - notice the plural there Robert (‘Plural’ means ‘more than one’ by the way).By the way, I think that it is very sad that Robert (a ‘keyboard warrior’, finds it a joke to refer to the recent devastating floods on Samui, in which many people lost everything they had. We were very lucky, our Lamai shop simply ended-up with wet floors, unlike many other unfortunate people, who’s livelihoods were wrecked). His comments, I feel, show him to be the crass, uneducated and mentally-challenged person that he is.
Have a nice day RalphRobert – or whatever your name is – and try not to let your bile give you too much indigestion!
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Mr.b
Well… New Year is finally ‘put to bed’, and it is back to business as usual! We have all been replacing the rather worn-out concrete path leading up to the front of the Maenam shop… it seemed to take a heck of a lot of sand, stone, and cement! Our backs have been aching for 4 days solid! Still… it was worth it… looks very good. Unfortunately, while we were digging around, I realised that the sign out the front of the shop was starting to look a bit ‘weary’, so our current project involves us ripping out the old… and putting up a new – rather dapper – sign. Photos will make their way up here in due course!
My welding is definitely improving! Well… in the sense that I can now stick bits of metal together quite well, giving a strong joint… but ‘looks’?… that’s a different thing altogether! I reckon the best description for my welding is ‘strong but ugly’! lol As my mate Roger says… ‘It would take a bloody nuclear bomb to blow that apart!’ … said as I was throwing a recently finished 4 inch rack around the back garden (on concrete) to show just how strong it was!
What I didn’t know was that welding gives you sunburn! Put it this way… I now don’t use welding goggles (opting for the full face mask now), and I wear long sleeved T-shirts when welding! You live and learn eh? -
Mr.b
The new A Board outside the shop in Lamai certainly seems to be drawing attention to itself… and not just because of its size! Wonder why? lol If you want to find out why, you are going to have to visit the shop to see the ‘strap-line’ at the bottom of the sign… priceless!
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Mr.b
Just got a new ‘A’ board sign for the shop in Lamai, and I think it looks great! It certainly makes the shop a lot easier to spot – being a full 2 metres high and 1 metre wide! I will be putting up a photo of it soon.
robert are discussing. 
Pyrofreak 2:02 am on May 28, 2012 Permalink |
Happy Birthday ! ! !
Welcome to the World, all the best for Nu, Bua and the newborn girl child !
Congratulation also to aunt La-on and happy Alan…
Pyrofreak 7:01 pm on May 28, 2012 Permalink |
Happy Birthday !
Welcome to earth, the best wishes to Nu and Bua and the newborn baby girl..
Congratulation also to aunt La-on and happy Alan
Greetings from Wuppertal
Melanie & Christian
Mr.b 4:47 pm on May 29, 2012 Permalink |
Thank you guys!!! She is soooooooo sweet! Ahhhhhhhhhhh
See photos… make me go all ‘gooey and soppy’ lol lol
John Kaewsuksai 2:37 am on May 31, 2012 Permalink |
wow, i had no idea. nice one, please pass on my congratulations Mr.B