It’s days like this that make me doubt my sanity. I was home in Madison for four days – and then very promptly got on a plane again this morning. My flights weren’t too bad, and when I got here there was a gentleman in the airport with a big Sony Online Entertainment sign. Which … should tell you why I’m in sunny San Diego today.

Yes, friends, much like my Arena.net sponsored trip last year, I am traveling on someone else’s dime. I’m here in San Diego as a part of the SOE Influencer Summit – an event you might recall from Brent’s detailed discussion on the VirginWorlds podcast last year.

It’s going to be an interesting weekend. I look forward to this opportunity both as a player – to provide feedback – and as a writer, to … you know. Some of the stuff I’m going to see won’t be discuss-able until sometime later, which always makes me kind of a sad panda. Everything I can talk about, though, I will make an effort to ensure shows up here or at Massively.

So, as always with stuff like this, I want to be clear: I am here under SOE’s auspices. They paid for my travel and lodging, and not all of the events planned for this weekend are purely of an informational nature; part of the point of this event is to familiarize the playerbase with the people making the games/running the company. As such, everything I write should be viewed through that lens. It is well within the realm of possibility that I am (in turn) being influenced by my surroundings and the events of this weekend.

I’d like to think I already have a good working relationship with these people, though, so I’m going to try not to get my knickers in a twist about all this fraternization. Most specifically, my wife has asked me to try to relax a little bit this weekend and not be a taciturn wretch.

The unseasonal warmth here will make that difficult, but (for her) I will try.