MH wont fire

[Josh23]

I'm having problems with me 250 watt MH it wont seem to fire... here the back up info...

-luminarc reflector with 6 ft of cord.
-250 watt 14k bulb
-250 gallaxy ballast

After purchasing the ballast and reflector I noticed the two connectors were not compatable so i removed both ends and replaced them with standard extension cord female and male ends.

Whats happened so far. I plug it in, wait a couple minutes and then got a slight light, then nothing. This continued to happen about every 2 minutes for 10 minutes before I shut it down.

During this time I had my hand on both the ballast and refector and a hell of a shock. Almost knocked me on my ***. No water anywhere. Why would I get a shock like that, why is there stray electricity? Was I just connecting the circuit as I was touching two pieces of metal?

Any help?