It’s coming up on the time when I’ll be going to sleep (I’m already in bed. Laptops are cool.) And sitting here like the family which used to live on Wheeler Farm* I was thinking about what was in my mind this morning when I woke up in this very bed.

Last night I had three fairly vivid and fairly awesome dreams. One of them was of an episode of 30 Rock in which many years ago Jack encapsulated the former CEO of NBC as well as the CEO’s lawyer in two boxes, then somehow managed to displace the boxes from time. After reappearing in our present day, the task of covering up the seriousness of the situation fell to Liz Lemon. Needless to say, while Liz was trying to downplay what happened, hilarity ensued.

The dream that I really enjoyed, though, took place far in the future as humanity was colonizing the universe. My dream centered on the events of one ship that had stopped near a planet to refuel the engines. A scout ship was sent to the planet’s surface to gather the fuel only to find that the entire planet had become overrun with undead. Oh no! Of all the things to find on a foreign planet.

Because the fuel was necessary to leave the system, the scout ship couldn’t return to the cruiser in orbit empty handed. That led to only one option and it’s the only option anyone ever has when you need something and the walking dead stand moaning unceasingly in your way. Bust some skulls.

Being the future, better weapons were available that exceeded the now-a-days solutions such as an axe and shotgun. Don’t get me wrong, those are tried and true weapons for cutting mighty swathes through undead, but you can’t tell me that you’d take such primitive means of destruction when at the same time you’re being offered a repeating laser rifle.

Unfortunately for our characters, as valiant an effort as they put up, they were eventually overwhelmed and could not gather the needed fuel. After all, they were trying to stop the tide of a whole planet. This is where things took a turn for the worse.

After running some calculations, the cruiser’s artificial intelligence program concluded that the only viable course to take was to self destruct the cruiser after uploading a computer virus to the scout ship which would force it to return to the planet’s surface.

I woke up just after one of the soldiers on the ground found a hiding place and was gripping his rifle tightly to his chest, listening for the moans which were growing louder.

I think the moral of the story is to not let planet’s become overrun with the walking dead. That’s got “bad idea” written all over it.

Over this weekend a friend of mine, and possibly yours, Nathan Wong, came down from Logan for a visit. Among various topics of discussion and activities Wong made the point of how he didn’t feel there was much to look forward with anticipation toward. I must say that I understand how Wong feels, but I do disagree.

Naturally, this is simply my view so anything I say would apply specifically to me and might not be anything everyone else gets excited about. With all that in mind, let me tell you about some things I am looking forward to with great interest. These will not be in any particular order except for the order that they pop into my mind after having completed the prior point.

1) Next week’s Battlestar Galactica. This statement could work for any week in which the next week has an episode of BSG airing. This is even more potent for what happened last Friday. I won’t spoil any plot for those unaware, but it has been a long time since I watched a TV show or movie where I felt uncontrollable urges to shout in amazement at what was happening on screen. This episode had several moments when such yelling occurred and I can only assume next week will be even better.

2) Summer vacation. While my summer will not be entirely free of responsibility, it will certainly be very enjoyable to have some of my current tasks reduced. I recognize that in a career such vacations are not given, but I’m not in a career  right now so I will take what I can. Being in school I can’t afford myself the time to do anything I want when I want without sacrificing a potentially higher grade and, more importantly, a comprehension of the course material. Extended time off will be greatly appreciated.

3) Getting out of school. As mentioned above, a career will reduce my available free time between semesters, since there will be no semester, but there’s an obvious perk to being out of school and in a career: money. Ah yes, money. It’d be a good thing to be racking in the money rather than racking up the student loans. Add into this the relative ease in locating a job, even in this declining economy, and compensation for a computer science degree and the money sounds even better. I don’t want to be really rich or anything, but a comfortable amount would be, well, comfortable.

4) Inevitable surprises. This option is quite broad and without any control. It still holds importance, though. Think of all the times in your life that something unexpected happened. Even if you might have known in some degree how it would turn out. Case in point: Iron Man. That movie had to have been the biggest surprise of last year. I enjoyed The Dark Knight much more, but I was expecting it to be awesome. I had no idea Iron Man would be anywhere near as great as it would be. It is easily one of my favorite comic book movies now, and a great movie at that. There are more surprises like this in store and even though I don’t know when they will come or what they will be, I look forward to them all the same.

5) One day finishing my book. I spend an overwhelming amount of my free time thinking about various things. Of that time an overwhelming amount is spent on one particular subject. That subject is the story I began many years ago. Every once in a while I pick it back up and work on it, but never in a consistent way to get it done. I try to justify the delay to myself by saying that I am working out the core details of the plot for the whole series in such a way that once I do begin working on it in a dedicated manner, I will be able to move through it rather seamlessly. Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not. I’ll just have to start writing and figure it out. But I do anticipate the day that some of you reading this will be able to read my book(s), and hopefully you will enjoy being able to be a part of them as much as I have.

Again, that’s not the entire list, just a sample. It’s not in ascending or descending order. There’s a lot to look forward to.