I have an alibi and I have much better places to play with my chemistry set than next to a freeway and bicycle trail:
Authorities are searching for the person or people responsible for setting off an improvised explosive device (IED) on a bicycle path that runs parallel to I-205 last night.
The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office said the device was ignited on a bike path that runs along the highway near Strawberry Lane on the west side of the highway. A sheriff’s deputy was driving southbound on the highway around 9:30 p.m. when he witness a flash and a plume of light that stretched across the highway.
It’s crap like this that will get Tannerite and Target Master banned.
It was probably a firecracker, like the ones we get every year on the reservations. Then there is photographic flash powder, which we bought in quantity for use in stage effects. Confine it even slightly and the high-speed stuff goes “bang”. We’d set that stuff off in our alley downtown, right next to the police department building wall, frequently in testing our flash pot arrangements.
Then again the I-205 caper could have been a black powder gun firing a blank charge.
The main thing we need to keep in mind is that the best thing to do in these situations is freak out and go into an irrational and pointless frenzy.