Circuit City Closes its doors for good…

What a depressing news!  After 60 years, Circuit City has closed all of its stores in the United States. The rest of the inventory was sold for less than 1.5Billion USD. 34,000 people were being laid off across the United States.  Their business interventions initiated since November 2008 have all failed.  Now all the stores are going to be permanently closed.

One wonders how long and how deep this economic slide is going to be?

One news item in Canton, Ohio showed about 800 job applicants for a school custodian.  It pays $15 – 16/hour.  One could only imagine how deep and how bad the economy is doing in their town when 800 people and more are applying for the same job.  People from all different educational backgrounds have applied for this position.

God, the whole world is hurting right now.  So many thousands of people have lost their means of income.  People are going to be hungry – and many people have lost their homes, investments, savings…. Lord, people are losing their all.

Please be merciful.  Please surround us with your mercy and grace.

As people get to be fearful because of these economic losses, may we all find our strength, comfort, provision and protection in the loving arms of Christ Jesus!

The little things that rob us of our joy…

What a weekend it was.  I got really drained and joy was taken from me.  I could liken it to a leaking faucet.  Small, continuous droplets may not seem significant, but when you collect over time, you realize how much water has been lost.

It could be like that sometimes.  My weekend was one of those where the faucet just leaked continuously and at the end of the weekend, I was dead tired.

First, I noticed that I inadvertently lost my stylus.  Sure it can be replaced easily but finding the stylus appropriate for my old HP IPAQ rx3417 could be challenging.  I kept looking and looking and still it was nowhere to be found.  I could still use my pocket pc but since I do not have the stylus, it is impossible to do a soft-reset.

Last Saturday night, I went to a wake of a friend’s mom.  At the wake, a classmate approached me for some help.  Her problems got a little too overwhelming for her that she ended up being confined to the intensive care unit after overdosing on diazepam.  She would later tell me that she went to Quiapo church and did a confessional about her accidental overdose.  I felt a silent anger inside when she told me that the old priest who heard her confession, reprimanded her and called her selfish for doing such thing.  There was no tinge of sympathy offered to this friend who was in such emotional pain.

I was about to leave at almost midnight – and when I turned on the key to the ignition, the engine would not start.  Aaarrggh… my battery was dead.  Two men from the wake offered their help and helped me jumpstart the car.

Sunday morning, I woke up with a migraine.  Must be from the late nights lately.  I was supposed to attend a local church where a younger friend was about to give his very first sermon, but due to the migraine, there was no way I could go out of the house and drive 45minutes to hear him speak.

After lunch, after taking in a pain reliever, my wife and I ventured outside to get some groceries.  Aaarrgh, the car would not start.  Thanks to Brett and Didz who helped me push the car to jumpstart it again.  A quick alternator test revealed that I needed to change my battery.  Another painful drip….

Well we got to S& R in Alabang.  It is a wholesale membership club which we recently joined because we discovered that their dog food is more reasonably priced than SaveMore.  We were just eating our favorite ice-cream when a middle-aged lady passed by pushing her cart.  We were so surprised to see her with (I quickly counted!) 36 bottles of Kirkland Daily Multivitamins (P1,000 per bottle)! She was pushing P36 thousand pesos worth of vitamins!

My wife and I shook our heads.  Yes we were at a wholesale club – but that was clearly what we would call HOARDING. There was a time when we couldn’t find any vitamins because they were always running out.  GO FIGURE!

My wife and I did some calculations.  One tablet of KIRKLAND DAILY MULTIVITAMIN cost P1.99.  One bottle contains 500 tablets – and at P1.99 per piece, that is so cheap compared to vitamins available in Mercury Drugstores.  I just felt sad for the majority of the Filipinos who do not have access to such reasonably priced vitamins.  The cheapest vitamin i bought from Mercury Drugstore was Revicon which was priced at P4 a piece!  Another drip…

When we got out of the wholesale club, we noticed something quite different on the rear bumper. My rear bumper had a rip on the middle part and the left side came un-hinged.  With my blood pressure rising, I knelt down to inspect it and to much to my chagrin, there was not even a scratch.  No dent, no scratch, no paint fading.. nothing. But the rear bumper was ripped.  Someone must have hit it with a cart or something and just took off.

What a downer. The front hood had just been replaced and buffed several days ago – and now the rear bumper has a rip.

Little things… they are like continuous drips… watch out because these little things can take your joy away.

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