Here are some names of relatives and ancestors I discovered in my search at the genealogy lab.

• Sperry Oster: Sounds like Sparrow and Perry. Not too strange on the scale. Born in 1857
• Talliafeus Oster: That’s a new one for me. Talliafeus yields 4 results on google, seems like a lost word. This guy may have been the very last Talliafeus on Earth!
• Norval Oster: Haven’t heard this one before. He’s my great grandfather.
• Valentine Oster: Here we go. Yes, Velentine. For real. I used to introduce myself as Valentine when meeting someone new at the Houston pubs. “My name is Valentine, but you can call me Len.” There was a guy in my high school with the same name and abbreviation, but he wasn’t too suave. To think that I really had an ancestor named Valentine Oster turns fiction into reality.

I haven’t had that anti-progenitor operation yet. I’m still working with a loaded gun here. Although Steven is an OK name, I find it a bit bland. A bit generic. I would have liked a hippie name. If I have a kid, I might name him after a star or constellation in the sky like Rigel, or Orion, or something. Not Betelgeuse, though! Can you imagine Betelgeuse Oster racing cars in high school? He would be an absolute maniac.

After some sweet-talking, begging, inquiry, and general requests; my date for iodine has been moved up!

New date for radioactive Iodine-131: June 20th

I received my PASSAPORTE today. I love these official government documents.

Good lord, I look like Osama bin Laden’s right hand man. I’m getting used to my new clean cut look.

Still not 100% on Brazil. I feel great these days, and I’ve always wanted to backpack through India. Working for an English speaking newspaper in Kuala Lumpur would be so cool. Plane ticket to KL: $250, Brazil: $2,500.

Kuala Lumpur:

• Second class citizen
• No guarantees on a work Visa
• Alone in a strange land
• Great jumping point to explore Asia
• Big scary unknown variables

Brazil:

• Full citizen
• Plenty of family
• Free living (mostly)
• Still an adventure
• Re-learn a language
• Get to know my ancestral roots

Houston:

• Friends and parents
• Tex-Mex (I’d give anything for rat-nest-randy’s right now)
• Lola’s neighborhood bar (where everyone knows your name)
• Work with felixsanchez.com (good work with a good friend)
• Uh-mericuh!!! (uh!)

I really don’t want to go back to Houston. If I moved stateside, I’d enjoy Portland, Denver, Raleigh, D.C., or Austin. I just don’t think Houston is where I should be. I would feel stuck.

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

People don’t believe me when I say the State Library of Victoria is an incredible place. On my way to the newspaper room I passed the Genealogy room. I thought “What the hell, I’ll see what they have on my grandpa.”

Grandfather Willis Otto Oster told me a story about the day he was kicking a football in a field. Two men in uniform approached him, “Are you Willis Oster?” He answered yes. “Come with us, you’ve been drafted for the war.” This was in 1945, he was 17 years old. Only a few generations removed from the immigrants who settled this land, he spoke fluent German, but that’s not where the battle was. They sent him to Japan.

As I traced my way up the branches, and down the roots, I found out that my Great Grandfather was drafted in World War I. He made it back alive, but I don’t have any more details than that. In searching for military documents, I found a Heinrich Oster who was a decorated soldier in the German army. Imagine a fierce Oster warrior relative killing his own family across the battlefield. I also found Oster Jews in the holocaust concentration camps. It hit me pretty hard how we are all one. Killing and fighting, destroying ourselves. Pretty sad.

Here’s where things get interesting. My great great grandfather George H. Oster fought in the Civil War. Unbelievable! My clan hails from Pennsylvania. Census forms show a history in a spot 30 miles away from Osterburg, PA. I’m sure that was some ancestor claiming our spot. I’ll get there one of these days.

So George H. Oster fought on the confederate side of the war. He was captured as a Prisoner of War in Vicksburg Mississippi on July 4, 1863. You know what? I just about damn near got myself captured as a prisoner in Mississippi a year ago. Lucky I had the most wonderful girlfriend on the back of my motorcycle, she said something to the state trooper that set us back on our way. But that’s another story for another time.

My fingertips reached as far back as an ancestor born in England, but my reach couldn’t feel any further. I’ll try again next time. I may have traced a wrong path along the way, but my old man says it looks about right.

Congratulations to young Charlie, age 8, from the city of Houston. He is the first to have been Brought an Acceptable Amount of Relief (BAARF).

His worldly knowledge in aboriginal craft has netted him a rare artifact from the distant land mass known as Australia.

The grand prize is on its way, and should arrive within days presuming it doesn’t make a surprise return to sender.

I’d like to introduce the inaugural sweepstakes trivia contest for children around the world. I’ve invented it and it’s called BAARF.

• The contest is open to contestants under the age of 10.
• Must be a citizen of Earth, national denomination inconsequential.
• Entries from robots will not be accepted even if within age and galactic limits.
• Intergalactic entities automatically disqualified.

This is a real contest. I know my constituent audience isn’t the under 10 demographic, but I know there is at least one! The item pictured above is really going to go out to some lucky kid if they can post the answer in the comment section. Try to win!

I have a plan for a road trip. I think I will rent a car and take it out to New South Wales.

My roommates have given their one-month notice, so my time in this house will be over soon. Melbourne has been a never-ending search for housing and jobs.

I’ve been researching some stories to do. Here are a few that interest me:

• A new battery-to-grid system is being tested using a zinc-bromine battery in rural and urban ares. If successful, it could be a major leap in how the power grid works. Things haven’t changed much since Tesla’s brilliant poly-phase system.
• India uses more coal than it can produce. A giant coal mine in Queensland has been purchased in order to sustain India’s hunger for energy. Extractive operators always seem to have the same effects on a community. Coal has the cheapest energy-to-cost ratio, but what will be the true cost of this new mine?
• A profile on life in the really rural areas of Oz.

I’ve got a couple other top secret ideas, but I don’t want to spill my guts all at once. Here’s the real kicker: My goal is to produce a written article, video, photos, and an audio podcast for each story. Of course this won’t be possible in all instances, but would be ideal. I’ve always done some combination, but never all of them. There’s a saying in freelance: you haven’t sold a story until you’ve sold it four times!

My mates are headed to Darwin. It would take a fair bit of fuel to get there, about the distance between L.A. and N.Y. We’ll see how the budget goes…

The time between posts can really pile on quickly!

Sometimes I’ll have an idea for a post, but there is this strange zone where being too personal is weird and being general is boring. I’ll try to ride the line.

Here’s where I stand:

• I have radioactive Iodine-131 (chemo) on June 27
• I’m stuck here in Melbourne without a work visa until then
• A full body scan will be performed to see how much the cancer has spread using a radioactive highlighting technology
• I won’t lose my hair, side effects minimal
• Life will be different. My run and gun self sufficiency in global adventure has been compromised by a need for continual medical scrutiny
• A single rogue cell can really mess your day up
• I’ve been thinking about traveling cheaply and doing a few local stories. Maybe rent a car and bring my gear
• I still have no plane ticket out of here, although the time to purchase is now. Brazil seems logical

Thanks to all the people who give me love and support, it helps.

Doc and I mapped out a game plan before radioactive Iodine-131 gets pumped. I ask some tough questions, and the answers are tough to hear. WARNING: This podcast is a bit of a downer, so know that before playing.

People come and stop

Waiting for the light to change

Still I sit and wait