Whats new: In July 1999, I got fed up with the red tape involved with the merger of Yahoo! and Geocities. Besides a horrible means of updating and servicing webpages, I felt that I was not getting the type of service I wanted. I began to design a new website, one that would more properly display my gymnastics related artwork and be easier to service, without the pop-ups and ads associated with free websites. This new website opened in November 1999 and is located at www.luvness.nu. Please visit that website and update your bookmarks.  ~Matt webdoc1.htm                                                                                                                                       webdoc2.htm                                                                                                                                       webdoc3.htm                                                                                                                                       webdoc4.htm                                                                                                                                       prod1.html

My Opinion

This section of the site will offer my commentary on a variety of subjects including but not exclusively gymnastics. Please feel free to reply to my outbursts in any way you see fit. All material is CopyrightŠ 1999 Matthew Ballou

When I chose another of my valid musings to place up here I will. Until then, I'm getting more educated about gymnastics. Probably one of the things that I sense most of all in the online gymnastics community is the schizm between those fans who know gymn and those who really don't. There's a guy who frequents the Outofboundsness board and chat and he's quite impressive in terms of his gymn knowledge. This is the type of thing the inspires me to know more I guess; seeing others which an awesome grasp of expertice reguarding a particular subject. In any case, it's quite clear to me that my understanding, or rather my depth of knowledge reguarding gymnastics, is lacking and I'd like to change that. The only gymn I really know anything about is totally within the 1990's and that's an evil admit in some places at some times. While that attitude bothers me a bit, I'm still not discouraged from knowing more, even if I felt I have been discouraged from asking questions of certain people at certain times in certain places. So my plan is this: cram the 80's. I'm going to be getting the 85, 87 and 89 Worlds soon. If anyone has any ideas about other competitions or compeditors I should know about, let me know.

I'd like to end with this: We're all gymn fans. Some of us only know the routines of a few gymnasts while some of us know the routines of every gymnast for the past 20 years (like that guy I mentioned above). Some know very little but gymn still appeals to them. We like certain gymnasts and certain types of expression and attitude. And those likes (and the dislikes that go with them) are not necessarily going to line up with everyone elses. Lets try to remember that no matter what our mentality for gymnastics is, it's still the thing that we're all inspired by. We're all watching the same things, we just see them differently. And my hope is that the ones who know more technical knowledge among us will choose to be a bit less malevolent with the expression of that knowledge. I happen to learn by asking questions and I'd like to be respected for asking the questions that I do.