Ausbury.com

Category: Life

  • Fear Of A Blank Planet

    I’ve been wanting to share this for quite some time and am finally getting around to it. I really am interested in what reaction you have to the video and lyrics below of “Fear Of A Blank Planet” by Porcupine Tree.

    You may find this dark. You may find this disturbing. I find it real. It’s not for the faint of heart, but I think there are some reminders here for parents who, like us, are trying extremely hard to make sure our kids become good men and women. Note in the video, a poster on the wall has “I Want To Believe” while the lyric is “Xbox is a god to me”. And the image at the end with the boy, gun in hand, walking toward the building (school?) with the lyric “So now where?”.

    [youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=sUnAxegUJu0]

    Sunlight coming through the haze
    No gaps in the blinds
    To let it inside
    The bed is unmade, some music still plays

    TV, yeah it’s always on
    A flicker of the screen
    A movie actor screams
    I’m basking in the shit flowing out of it

    I’m stoned in the mall again
    Terminally bored
    Shuffling around the stores
    And shoplifting is getting so last year’s thing

    Xbox is a god to me
    My finger on the switch
    My mother is a bitch
    My father gave up ever trying to talk to me

    Don’t try engaging me
    The vaguest of shrugs
    The prescription drugs
    You’ll never find a person inside

    My face is smothered on
    Curiosity is good enough for me
    I’m tuning out his eyes
    Pills are on the rise

    How can I be sure I’m here?
    The pills that I’ve been taking confuse me
    I need to know that someone sees that
    There’s nothing left, I simply am not here

    I’m through with pornography
    The acting is lame
    The action is tame
    Explicitly dull, or rather a lull

    Your mouth should be boarded up
    Talking all day with nothing to say
    Your shallow proclamations
    All misinformation

    My friend says he wants to die
    He’s in a band, they sound like Pearl Jam
    Their clothes are all black
    The music is crap

    In school I don’t concentrate
    And sex is kinda fun, but just another one
    Of all the empty ways of using up the day

    How can I be sure I’m here?
    The pills that I’ve been taking confuse me
    I need to know that someone sees that
    There’s nothing left, I simply am not here

    Bipolar disorder
    Can’t be any boarder
    Bipolar disorder
    Can’t be any boarder

    Don’t try to be liked
    You don’t mind
    You feel no sun
    You steal a gun
    To kill time
    You’re somewhere
    You’re no where
    You don’t care
    You catch the breeze
    It still relieves
    So now where?

  • The Legend Of Dough Sudnutty

    This post is for some of my closest friends, who over the years have heard the story about me getting a mysterious envelope that I always thought was to Dough Sudnutty.

    I was digging through some archived folders on an old hard drive and found the image below. Apparently I thought the envelope was amusing enough that I scanned it and stuck it away as a keepsake.

    envelope.jpg

    All this time I had the Sudnutty part right (except for an extra “t”), while the first name was actually Fouh.

    This will not keep my good friends from calling me Dough, since this too has become a joke over the years based on A) Regular emails I receive to Dough and B) Random customer service people who ask me how to spell “Doug” and then put an “h” on the end.

    So R.I.P. Dough Sudnutty …. (moment of silence…….)

    I think I like Fouh better anyway – it’s artsier.

  • That Was Yesterday

    I got an unexpected birthday present yesterday – a call from an old friend. The last time I talked with him was 15 years ago, yet it took less than 5 minutes to connect again. I have a hand full of friends from my college days that are like brothers and sisters to me. My friend who called yesterday is one of those few people.

    If you’re lucky, at some point in life you’re able to really connect with others in an extraordinary way. It takes time, an enormous investment of time, to put yourself in a position to reach this pinnacle of friendship. So it makes sense, I think, for people that find these “100% guard down” friendships to find them during their high school or college years. For me it was during my college years and when this time in my life ended, I don’t think I was ready for it and it rocked me emotionally.

    I think this type of friendship is rarely found later in life. The milestones of marriage and parenting make it next to impossible to invest the time necessary to build new extraordinary friendships, let alone continue those rare friendships from the past. I don’t think this should stop us from pursuing meaningful relationships, we just have to recognize that the time investment is a lot more difficult and be careful not to screw up more important priorities in our lives.

    As I reflect on yesterday’s phone call, I think the best thing about college was the true sense of living in community. That is very difficult – perhaps impossible – to sustain or reconstruct later in life. At the same time, I realize how fortunate and blessed I was to have found the right people and to have experienced that time in my life.

    There is a special connection with these people and I was reminded of that during my phone call yesterday. It also showed me, and not for the first time, that once these connections are established, they run so deep and are so meaningful that even after years, they just don’t go away.

    So here are some questions that I hope will provoke some discussion/comments:

    As we grow older, are we are becoming more private people, keeping more to ourselves and becoming less social? Is this just the normal pattern of life? Does being good at our jobs, good parents, and good spouses consume us? What are you doing to stay connected with those rare friends in your life?

    “That was yesterday
    I had the world in my hands
    But its not the end of my world
    Just a slight change of plans

    That was yesterday
    But today life goes on
    No more hiding in yesterday
    Cause yesterdays gone

    That was yesterday
    Love was torn from my hands
    But its not the end of my world
    Just a little hard to understand

    Goodbye yesterday
    Now its over and done
    Still I hope somewhere deep in your heart
    Yesterday will live on”

  • Good Causes

    I’ve added two “Good Causes” to the right side of the blog.

    One is World Vision which allows you to help children in need through child sponsorship.

    The other is the Belmont Foundation which is a child mentoring program for fatherless young men. Please check them out if you get a chance.

  • C’Mon, Take Your Tray Back, You Loser

    (Note: This is especially for my Iowa friends Matt, Jon and Kristy – wonderful, hip, and groovy people those Iowans and still my best friends on the planet. And for Marcia, Sharon and whoever else may be out there and remember this…)

    evangel-tray.jpgThis made my morning.

    My colleague and friend Brent Sharp sent me a link to this ebay auction which is for a cafeteria tray from Evangel College University.

    When I was at Evangel back in the year of our Lord 19-and-88, there was a little Indian guy who worked in the cafeteria. He was in charge of making sure students took their trays back to the drop off area. Of course, since this was a rule, it had to be occasionally broken.

    So one magical day that I will never forget is when I broke that rule, then while exiting the caf I felt a tug on the back of my shirt, turned around and there was the little guy. He solemnly stated these words that I will never, ever forget.

    “Take tway back.
    Tahoo pooddy dare.”

    (Interpretation: “Take your tray back. I saw you put it there.”)

    Every now and then, I will get an email from my friend Matt:

    To: Doug
    Subject: Take Tway Back

    Those were the days eh? I would love to go back and relive a few like this one.

  • 40 Is The New 30

    I’d like to join my blogging buddy Dorsey in wishing his brother Jeff a happy 40th birthday. Both these guys have awesome blogs that I highly recommend checking out.

    Senor Jeff, happy 40 you old man you and welcome to the club!

    This is where I would go on and on (and on) about all the things that suddenly started hurting and stopped working after I hit the 4 decade mark. This is not to mention the things that bounce (that shouldn’t) when I walk fast. However, some fool told me that 40 is the new 30 and I am pretending that this is true.

    I highly recommend that you join me in believing this complete line of BS, that way we both have 10 more years to start complaining about all those things.

    Cheers my friend!

  • What Google Thinks About Me

    I got a kick out of this. I recently decided to say a little bit about who I am over in the right hand column of the blog.

    Now if you search for my last name on Google, here is the search engine result. Check out the text I highlighted in yellow:

    google-doug-ausbury.jpg

    —————-
    Listening to: Ace Frehley – New York Groove

  • The Baseball Beer Song

    I am thrilled to welcome my first guest blogger, my youngest son Collin (age 10). On Father’s Day this year, while at an Indians game, Collin wrote new words to “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”. He calls it “The Baseball Beer Song”. Take it away Collin!

    Take me out to the food bar
    Where we’ll miss half of the game
    Buy me some peanuts and horse pee
    I don’t care if I ever get drunk
    So let’s wait for the Bud Light
    If they don’t have any its a shame
    For its Once, Twice, Three times I crashed
    While drinking Miller Light.

  • Paint It Black

    Lazy, hot Sunday afternoon. Kids and wife are out of the house. Local boy Joe Walsh turned up pretty loud on the surround sound system. Ok, really loud.

    So loud that I just noticed my dog Buddy left the room. Other than barking fits, Buddy is a “party- favorites-Jimmy-Buffet” kind of music lover. In my eyes, these are his only two faults.

    I’m pretty sure he rolled his eyes at me as he passed by. I could tell (yet again) that he was on the verge of speech, likely about to say, “I ask for Margaritaville and you give me Life’s Been Good? Pathetic!”

    I’m realizing I haven’t blogged in quite some time. Several of my new blogosphere friends (who have been doing this longer than I) seem to have taken the summer off. Perhaps subconsciously I have been doing the same? I just went through a few weeks where everything mechanical in my life stopped working, so that’s my excuse.

    I have completed my full discography collection of all Rush albums adding Moving Pictures, Hemispheres and the new one Snakes And Arrows last week. I found 1 ticket on Ebay in the 4th row and am eager to see them here in Cleveland at the end of August. It will be my fourth time.

    Most classic rock fans know Tom Sawyer and New World Man pretty well, but have never heard what I think is one of Rush’s best albums: Presto. Several years beyond their “heyday”, I fell in love with this disc in 1990 and have fond memories of listening to it in my old Honda Accord back in Springfield, Missouri.

    I gave it a spin last week and was reminded again how really good it is. Presto includes a song called War Paint that, at least for me, is a great song about the masks we wear. I think it’s also about us becoming so full of ourselves that we can’t see clearly.

    All puffed up with vanity
    We see what we want to see
    To the beautiful and the wise
    The mirror always lies

    Boys and girls together
    Mistake conceit for pride
    Ambition for illusion
    Dreams for self-delusion

    Girls and boys together
    See what it is we lack
    Boys and girls together
    Let’s paint the mirror black

    Paint it black

    I like the idea of painting the mirror black, dropping the mask, and being real with others. Easier said than done of course.

    What do you think?

  • Quotes & Head Scratchers Volume 2

    If we quit voting, will they all go away?

    Ever noticed how nothing is impossible for those who don’t have to do it?

    Seen it all. Done it all. Don’t remember most of it.

    How do you know if honesty is the best policy unless you’ve tried some of the others?

    If you saw a heat wave, would you save back.

    Why didn’t Noah swat those two mosquitoes?

    All I ask is a chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.

    Why doesn’t Tarzan have a beard?

    Someone who thinks logically is a nice contrast to the real world.

    What if the Hokey Pokey IS what it’s all about?

    Why do they call it a TV set when you only get one?

    All’s well that ends.

    A penny saved is a penny.

    Things are more like they are today than they ever have been before.

    First rule of marriage: If you’re right, apologize fast.