He was rocket man, but not a rocket scientist

Tough sledding

See if you can figure out where this man's plan went awry: A 62-year-old in Independence Township, Mich., was going sledding in his backyard. To make things interesting, he constructed a backpack made of a motorcycle muffler filled with gasoline and gunpowder, then lit the fuse as he set off down the hill. (Hint: That part.) Does it help that he was wearing a helmet? Not really? "At some point during the ride, the device exploded," Undersheriff Mike McCabe told the Detroit News. As explosives set afire sometimes do. "He has this sledding party every year, and he always does outrageous things. But he's never blown himself up before." Can't say that anymore. The man suffered burns over 18 percent of his body, including some that were second-degree.

Classy move

Note home bemoans students' idiocy

Principal Ron Sterr of Litchfield Elementary School in Litchfield Park, Ariz., sent a letter home with students about a math assignment. It said: The math we do is really easy. If your child is either too lazy or too stupid to finish it in class, I'm sending it home so that you can work with them and judge for yourself whether it is laziness or idiocy that inhibits your child's progress. It went on to mock students with peanut allergies and emotional problems stemming from puppy deaths. Here's the funny thing, Sterr says now: He totally didn't mean to send that letter. It was a joke to a teacher, he says, and well ... stupid copy machines. Sterr has been suspended while the district figures out what to do next.

Police reports

Suspects found at the end of tracks

Someone at the Merita Bread Company in Kingsport, Tenn., heard people inside a truck in the parking lot late Friday night and called the police. From there is was pretty easy police work, mostly because it had just snowed. Police followed the tracks to another truck, under which they found James Denoon, 34, and Anthony Stout, 18. And next to the truck, they found $300 worth of snack cakes, which had been taken from the truck, reports the Kingsport Times-News. Denoon and Stout were charged with theft.

Man upset police let magic out of bag

Craig Clark Show, 49, of Portland, Ore., says he has been protected since 1995 by a medicine bag that had been blessed by a medicine woman. But that good fortune came to an end last summer when he was pulled over by police in Sandpoint, Idaho. The Bonner County Daily Bee reports that Show was charged with DUI. During the stop, officers looked in the medicine bag, and when they opened, they released all its mojo, and now it is practically useless, Show says in a lawsuit against the police filed in January. He seeks $25,000 for the loss of the mystical powers of the bag.

Compiled from Times wire services and other sources by staff writer Jim Webster, who can be reached at jwebster@sptimes.com.