Year 1 Anniversary Trip

Often these days life gets in the way of me writing. It use to be a way of decompressing and something I enjoyed in my free time. These days with more responsibilities at my paying job/career and more attention needed for my growing family; writing and updates to these blog often get put off to the side.
So I pulled up the site for the first time in quite awhile to notice an entry from last year that was never posted.

====================================================================

It's our one year anniversary and time to get away. As I've stated before my job as allowed me to travel all over the United States over the last twenty years. I have seen a lot of this country and been most major cities. Pam has only been to a few places in her short time here. So we planned a trip for our one year anniversary. We did the Mid Atlantic swing, as I like to call it, with stops in North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington DC.

Pam doesn't have a whole lot of relatives in the US. One of her cousins lives in the small town of Jefferson, North Carolina which is nestled up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We made plans to spend the weekend with them.

The first night of our trip we stopped in downtown Charleston, West Virginia. The city had some charm and a fairly bustling scene for a Friday evening in July. We walked around for awhile, stretching out from a long day of driving. We ate at a local pizza and beer joint before retiring back to the hotel for the evening. The next morning it was a four hour drive up through the mountains to our destination. We lost cell phone service and I certain the only way we found their house was because Steve was standing near the road and we saw him on our third pass. After settling in and having a late lunch; they took us on a tour of Jefferson. The next day we got a scenic tour of the mountain and surrounding areas and ate a great meal at a BBQ restaurant. Early the next morning we headed out as Leah and Steve both had to work. It was a short but fun stay with breathtaking views. Now it was onto our real vacation... Virginia Beach!

After a few hours of driving we arrived at Virginia Beach and our first stop was Jollibee of course! Pam had to get her Chicken Joy craving out of the way. Then it was three days of sunny beaches and relaxing and exploring the city. We kept it low key, staying near the Boardwalk Area of the beach most of the days. We did head over the Virginia Beach Aquarium one morning followed by a stop at a Filipino resto. After three days of fun, sun, good eats, and beer it was time to head to the next destination.

For a change of scenery we headed to Ocean City, Maryland for a day. We checked in the hotel and walked to the beach. This time we didn't stick around the beach. Instead we cooled off at the Ocean City Brewing Company for awhile where I sampled a couple of local flavors before eating delicious crabs from down the street.

Now it was off to Washington DC to spend the weekend with my friends Chris and Teri. On the way we made a tour Dogfish Head Brewery. Pam always puts up with my side trips to these places. We arrived at my friends apartment late in the afternoon. There was nothing too exciting on night one as we just was catching up with one of my best friends. Saturday came and we headed downtown to see some sites like The White House, Capitol Building, Mint, and Washington Monument. Smithsonian Natural History Museum and American History Museum were also on the agenda. All fun stops. We made them Filipino dinner that night and cooled off from morning. Sunday morning we decided to hit up the National Zoo. Once again the rest of the day was spend cooling off and hanging out. Early Monday morning came and once again we hit the road so our friends could get to work. Another short weekend stop but it's always good to see those two.

Eventually we got back home and decompressed for a day before I had to head back to work. It was a good vacation. My goal was to always take Pam places.To see places and parts of the US. On our trips, I am seeing old roads and places through a new set of eyes. It puts a new spin on it all for me. Plus it is a hell of a lot more interesting traveling with my lovely wife than the days I traveled alone in a box truck full of AV equipment.



Observation of An Illogical mind by Sean Kimmel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.seankimmel.com.
Please feel free to share the link but contact me for any other uses or publication. Thanks.

Angry Face

There will always be disagreements in a relationship. Add in being raised in completely different cultures and there can be even more work to done.

Luckily my wife and I haven't had too many squabbles in our first year of marriage. And only one that I deemed fairly serious. At least the serious one helped us realize we both need to do work on communication and common ground.

Honestly most of our spats are because of miscommunication and differences in our cultural upbringing. When it happens I don't really know what we are arguing or why she is mad mainly because I view it as nothing to get mad about. Of course that's not really the root of the problem so it takes some detective work to figure it out. Most of time I end up apologizing and we move on.

Tampo is a Filipina way of handling problems and it's a very foreign concept to many Westerners. The woman get angry and wont speak (sometimes not talking for several hours or days) until the issue fades away. The core of the problem is never really discussed but the man and woman both save face.

In my mind it comes off as the woman pouting. I would rather talk about it. How else are we to know what the real issue might be.

My guess is I will always be dealing with tampo in some form or another. At least my wife normally only gives me that familiar angry face to let me I messed up in one form or another and is silent for a minimal amount of time.

Like I said earlier; we are both still learning, growing, and adapting.



Observation of An Illogical mind by Sean Kimmel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.seankimmel.com.
Please feel free to share the link but contact me for any other uses or publication. Thanks.

Dallas Wrestling Trip 2016

As some followers of this silly blog of mine know that nearly every season I try to go on a wrestling vacation at Wrestlemania time. This year was no exception. However, it was the first time my wife came with me. Mainly because she has never been around before.

We tried to balance the vacation out between activities we both wanted to do while in Dallas, Texas.

Once arriving and meeting up with familiar faces at the hotel, we went to Martin House Brewery. A place where a friend of mine works in distribution. A couple of other people joined the adventure of brewery hopping for the night. It was a good time with good beer.

The next we headed downtown with a couple of other friends to check out the Dallas Aquarium. Afterwords we ate lunch, we walked around checking out the usual tourist spots like the JFK Assassination site and Reunion Tower. After it was time for the Ring of Honor event, which was my first live wrestling event in nearly a year and my wife's first one. It was a great event and my wife had a blast.

On Saturday we debated several things to do. We ended up doing a little shopping and lots of relaxing. Plus watched the NXT event at the hotel.

Sunday rolled around and we had the opportunity to visit old family friends of my wife's from the Philippines.We went to their home and ate a fantastic lunch. It meant a lot to Pam to see one of her mother's best friends. It was a fun afternoon for us both. Then it was more wrestling. We opted not to go to Mania this year. Tickets were too outrageous for us. So we gathered in a room with friends and watched the event.

Monday morning came around. We had to leave early to catch our flight back home.

It was a short trip, but a fun one. Even only seeing people for a short time is better than not at all. I am still amazed at how this group of people from around the world come together all the time.

Orlando plans are already in the works for 2017.



Observation of An Illogical mind by Sean Kimmel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.seankimmel.com.
Please feel free to share the link but contact me for any other uses or publication. Thanks.

Niagara Falls - A Honeymoon Getaway

I haven't wrote much on here in a long time. My free time because less and less any more. Which is why I never wrote about this trip last year.

I guess it was our official honeymoon. Me and the wife jumped in the car and drove out to Niagara Falls for a couple of days over Labor Day weekend. It was rather inexpensive method to get away over Labor Day. And it was our first vacation/road trip together.


I had been to Niagara before and traveled down these interstates numerous times over the years. But watching Pam take it all in for the first time made a lot of it new to me once again. Her inquisitive nature takes over at rest stops as she grabs pamphlets and maps to area in search of deals and possible future adventures. Her friendly ways take over as she talks to other travelers in this places. It's nothing to walk out of the restroom to find her chatting with a total stranger.

To see the beauty of the Falls again with my beauty warmed my heart. We spent the afternoon and evening of the first night all around at the Falls. Looking at it from over head and going down to caverns below (and getting soaked). We walked back to hotel to change. Then walked back to the Falls to gaze at it under the night sky.

The next morning we awoke and walked around the downtown area. We ended up at the Aquarium, which was pretty decent. We both enjoy the spectacle of animal gazing. We squeezed in
before heading back to the hotel and checking out.

We stopped at an outlet mall (or two) on the way back and had an overnight stay in downtown Cleveland before coming back home to relax for the rest of the holiday.




Observation of An Illogical mind by Sean Kimmel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.seankimmel.com.
Please feel free to share the link but contact me for any other uses or publication. Thanks.