Farewell to Fry's

From October 3, 2011 to October 8, 2018 I was Fry's Electronics employee. Employee number 150924 to be exact at store 22. I was either cashiering, doing returns, picking up items from in-store pickups, or stocking items. I wore company mascot Charlie Chip costume one time. On Wednesday my former work place closed their doors forever. Even I have left the company 2 years ago I got super emotional that day. I felt like I did on my last day at Fry's. Having hard time saying goodbye. I also felt a sense of loyalty to them. The reason why is they toss me a lifeline by hiring me at right time when I need a miracle Hail Mary touchdown. I end up spending 7 years at Fry's store 22 making it my second home and playground. I worked with many good co-workers that I still chat with some to this day. I have seen wrestlers from local indy fed shopping in the store once in a while. I have once checked Mario Ramos and Mark Saccomanno out. Both players have brief stints in the majors. The job paid decent at the time before they made changes that affected every position and department around. I knew things were going down in 2017 when they changed my position hourly with commission to just fixed hourly and it was lowball of $9.50 a hour which doesn't make rent in Austin. They would move me to another department with bump in pay including commission. A week later after they moved me they eliminated couple of positions killing off what's left of the morale at the store. Both co-workers left instead taking a big pay cut. Don't blame them especially when one became a parent not long ago. Things happened around Austin in 2018 that I viewed as signs as well my friend and roommate moving to DFW area. I used three months to contemplate my next move and at same time gauge what's going on at store. I realize things weren't getting better as well not enjoying being in Austin area anymore. I left Fry's and moved out of Austin. Through the good, the bad, and the strange I had fun good positive experience working at Fry's.

I found solace on Fry's Electronics Memories page reading and sharing stories with former Fry's employees from other stores. There be posts on Fry's lingo, the cheer, and the funny, weird, and nasty moments around the stores. From their experience it was like mines: we had fun time working there. The biggest thread is share your employee number. I posted a YouTube video of Animusic song asking anyone from my store who remembers walking in to tune of Animusic DVD being played. Turns out every store had played at some time. One of best stories told on the page from store 43 going to a Symantic and Intel training which had other competitors there. Fry's employees lead a company cheer everyone unknowingly partake til they were had. Owning one over the competition is worth the bragging rights.

I'm going to forever miss the place. Wish things turned around for them but it was too late. Farewell Fry's and thank you. It was best 7 working years of my life.

The Joy When They See Their Card For First Time

This post is a combination of indy wrestling show and trading cards.

After a week and half of the state being frozen it thawed out and melted around here on Friday. It went back to our normal warm winter of clear blue skies in no time. After long a week of cold weather destruction and accessing the damage everyone needed a sense of release and get away from reality for a bit. That came Saturday for me with New Texas Pro Wrestling show in Colorado City. I went to a show that day and had a fantastic time with me cheering, booing, waving signs in support of King Rob Love, Jastin Taylor, and Max Heights, and photographing the show.

What does this have do with trading cards? I'm going to back track to another Texas indy fed Sabotage Wrestling. I been to their shows when I was living in Austin at the time. The central Texas based fed (run by Jeffrey Cerda and his crew) would release trading card sets back in 2019. There are 10 cards per series and printed in short supply. Running a fed is no easy task. One of series feature first ever card of AEW wrestler Ricky Starks. Sabotage recently released series 5 card set I pre-order back when it was announced. The set feature current Reality of Wrestling (run by WWE Hall of Famer Booker T) women champion Promise Braxton as well Alex Gracia and Vertvixen who have made appearances in AEW. There are two from that set appeared on New Texas Pro Wrestling show: Kiefer Bartek and Nastico.

Kiefer Bartek is not only a wrestler (trained by Booker T), but runs NTPW taking it various cities around Texas. He have appeared in various Texas feds such as Heavy Metal Wrestling, Inspire, and Metroplex Wrestling as The Sheriff. Nastico is the self-proclaimed best manager of wrestling. The masked man is around DFW indy feds especially DFW All-Pro, the place where he trained and started at, as well traveling around state with his group of guys to numerous feds. He uses social media cutting promos hyping up his appearances and interactively engage with fans and wrestlers.

After the show I thanked all the wrestlers and everyone involved for a good show and wish them a safe drive back just like I always do. I went to Nastico and Kiefer Bartek separately showing them their cards and their eyes lit up. Nastico was ecstatic when he saw the card. It was first time he saw his own card and want me take photos of him autographing and showing it off. Kiefer, IMO the best card of the set, told me its a dream of his to be put on a trading card. Like Nastico, its first time he saw his as well. I witness the joy out of them when they finally saw themselves immortalized on a trading card. I'm sure its the feeling of thousands when they see themselves on a card for first time ever.

Nastico signs his card

Nastico shows off his official Sabotage Wrestling card

King Rob Love and a knocked out Alex Arsenal

Jastin Taylor

Max Heights

Frozen in Texas

Cold and very frosty here in west Texas as winter Texas weather gone wild. It's been freezing here since last Wednesday with temperatures below freezing point and continued throughout the weekend. With freezing rain and ice on the road hardly anyone in this state knows how to drive. There been several chain reaction wrecks especially up in Fort Worth and Austin. Unprecedented thing happen yesterday as entire state of Texas went under a winter weather storm warning. Third snow storm of the year happened here yesterday dumping 3 3/4 inches. Even the southeast Texas region such as Houston, Corpus Christi and Brownsville received snow as well parts of Mexico. Despite some of the roads are clear its still freezing and rather be inside a warm home or out in the front or back playing in the snow. This continuous cold remains for almost remainder of the week til Friday or Saturday.