Back To The Vortex

Has it been a year already, or have I just experienced the biggest lost-time incident in the history of UFO-dom? Seriously, it feels as though I just got home from the 2011 Burlington Vortex Conference and here in the mail already is an invitation to the 2012 Burlington Vortex Conference...

And when I say "in the mail" I don't mean in my gmail inbox, kids. I'm talking about the flippin' Pony Express. As in, someone printed up a flier on sheets of paper, folded that paper, stapled it, wrote my name and address on it with a pen, misspelled my town, scribbled the correct name over the mistake, wrote down the wrong zip code, scribbled the correct zip code over that, licked a stamp, applied the stamp to the paper, and put the whole damn thing in a big blue box on the sidewalk and then waited a few days for me to get it. I'm exhausted just describing the ordeal; I can't imagine how the actual person who sent it must feel...

So the BVC2012 takes place this October, and features a lot of the same people and subject matter as last year: Roswell, crop circles, pyramids, Atlantis, time travel, haunted forests, UFOs, monsters, reality shifting, Reptoids, and, uh... damn, what was that other thing...? Oh, yeah, Vortexes!

Some Vortexes sweep you into alternate dimensions. Some, like this one, sweep you into a world of family fun! The one in Burlington does neither.

I'm not sure whether I'll go this year, despite the Herculean effort that went into mailing me the invitation. You see, when I attended last year, I was just getting my feet wet. I was a UFO newbie, a babe in the woods, really, still many months away from becoming a Certified UFO Field Investigator. I was there to observe and learn, a student studying at the feet of the masters, as it were.

This year... Well, let's just say I've grown, and I've cast aside the things of my youth. I mean, Vortex Conferences are ok. You know, if you're a beginner. Don't get me wrong: if they invited me to this year's Conference to be a presenter, so that others could study at my feet, I'd be okay with that. Circle of life and all. But to go just to go.... eh. I think I'm washing my hair that weekend.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't go. In fact, I think you should.