Physics. Gravity. Catastrophe.
Crash Course in CENTRIPETAL Force.

Wikipedia defines, centripetal force is a force that makes a body follow a curved path; it is always directed orthogonal to the velocity of the body, toward the instantaneous center of curvature of the path. Centripetal force is often misspelled as centripical force, believe me I made that mistake too many times.

Today, I learned something that you will not find in any textbook, real life experiences in physics. I was water skiing today on the lake. It was a lake we had never been to before. My wife was driving the boat and got to an area where she had to decide which way to go from several different options. She chose to turn around and go back down the straight channel that we had come down. In the process, the precise angle that she turned the boat with the combined speed of the boat, took me and literally slung me around the corner so fast that I knew I couldnt hold on anylonger without reaching speeds I cannot even fathom. It happened so quick that in that split-second decision to let go, I immediately face planted the water while I was still accellerating. I hit the water so hard that I thought I was going to lose consciousness for a second. I grabbed a ski to hold me up and knew instantaneously that I busted my ear drum. I put my finger in my ear when I recovered and expected to see blood because it was so painful, I couldn't imagine that I didn't rupture it. What a catastrophe. The story gets better or worse I should say.

I decided that was enough water skiing so we decided to go to a cove. In the cove, there were two tree ropes that ran from a platform to swing out over and into the water. It was amazing, some younger kids were doing DOUBLE summersaults in the air. It looked amazingly fun and easy. Chuck was like, "You wanna go give it a try?" Sure. You go first. Chuck went and jumped straight in. It was my turn. I grabbed the bicycle handles that were attached to the rope and stood on the platform. My biggest fear was the handle bars slipping out of my hand and plowing into the dirt before I ever reached the water. I let loose and swung. As I got over the water and planned my aerial flip, I started to realize it was going to be near impossible. I waited too long to launch me forward and my trajectory launched me straight upwards. I looked down, now nearly 15 feet above the water, knowing that I had no momentum to even just fall in normally. I fell and the water broke my fall and nearly my back. Not to mention, it hurt my already busted ear drum. Two catastrophes in one day.