A friend of mine could have made this video tonight. Let's just say that launch tubes have a purpose. That purpose is to put the splodey-stuff in the air. When the splodey ball is lit outside of the tube, it might come back at you and your house. 
I shoot the big ones, 1.3G explosives.
A couple years ago I was lighting a 6" mortor off and it blew up in the tube, causing what we call a flower pot. I was about 3' away from it when it happened it also set off about 4 more in a row, one of those flower potted. I was getting ready to get back in the action when I felt a lot of hands patting my back. I was on fire, thank goodness for proper equipment and a lot of sweat or I'd have a lot of scars from that night.
Here is my finale from 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNcecKBJGok Last year was my last year being in charge of the fireworks since 2005.
We had a little error in the middle of it and I had to relight the finale string, people loved it.
here is this years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G62OA8ZIgZU we went electronic instead of hand firing, hence why I resigned from being in charge, but I still showed up and helped them set/clean up.
