mans best friend

http://www.recordnet.com/daily/news/...2505-gn-1.php#
Lode Man Selling Good Karma on eBay
Unusual product pitch is way to keep his business afloat
By Francis P. Garland
Lode Bureau Chief
Published Friday, February 25, 2005


MURPHYS -- Chris Mejia's eclectic courtyard shop on Main Street is hardly
your garden-variety garden store.
Its mix of mirrors, body lotion, bird baths and fountains gives the place a
sort of Victoria's Secret-meets-Orchard Supply Hardware feel.

But the potpourri, soap-by-the-inch and scented candles are hardly the most
unusual items for sale at Elements Garden & Home.

Mejia's also hawking good karma.

He made his pitch this week on eBay, hoping to attract support for his
cash-strapped business and, in the process, keep his life intact.

He's already had a few buyers, including an old friend from France who has
offered to provide him $100 a month until the money runs out or Mejia's
business recovers.

A 30-year-old Vermont woman also has offered to auction off space on her
body -- specifically her arms, back, shoulders, legs or stomach -- for a
tattoo advertisement, and she's willing to split the proceeds with Mejia.

The responses have been somewhat overwhelming for Mejia, who turns 34 today.

"I don't know what to say," he said Thursday from his Main Street shop. "I
heard from a gentleman in Richmond, Ind. this morning who just about had me
in tears."

The man said he was out of work and was going for a job interview today --
and still promised to send money.

"All he asked is that we say a prayer for him and his wife, who has had some
complications with her pregnancy," said Mejia. "It was pretty touching and
powerful."


In the world of some eastern religions, karma is the fundamental doctrine of
actions and consequences -- actions that will trigger consequences in this
or future lifetimes.

One Stockton-area Buddhist said Thursday that karma was a concept that can't
be bought or sold.

"It's preposterous," said Brother James Percival, the abbot at Stockton's
Middlebar Buddhist Monastery.

Percival said the mere act of trying to sell good karma could induce bad
karma. "It's a confidence scheme of some sort," he said. "I guess it just
takes a sucker, unfortunately. And the Internet has opened up alleyways for
people to find victims."

Thich Dat Tin, a monk at the Vietnamese Buddhist Association in Stockton,
was less critical.

"If he is good and truly means what he says, and that he receives an
offering and makes good on it, he will benefit and the (buyer) will
benefit," he said of Mejia. "The action of the receiver is very important
and because I don't know the person, I can't make any judgment."

Gretchen Thomson of Murphys laughed when she heard of Mejia's bid to sell
karma. "Karma isn't for sale," she said Thursday on Main Street. "Like most
of the important things in life, it can't be bought."

Mejia, who grew up in Calaveras County and returned home about three years
ago to open a business after losing his telecommunications job to
downsizing, said he resorted to the karma ad as a last resort to save his
business -- and his life.

He and his wife, Tanya, opened their first version of Elements in Angels
Camp in 2002 but moved to Murphys a short time later. The self-professed
"dreamer" is the son of Terri Stickles, who won a bronze swimming medal at
the 1964 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, and Alvaro Mejia, a Columbian
Olympian who won the Boston Marathon the year Chris was born.

His job loss left him depressed for a while but also spurred him to create
plans for Elements. He had big ideas; he saw Elements as the cornerstone to
a "retail brand bigger than Target," one that would rival Martha Stewart.

Mejia said things were going along fine the first couple of years -- his
business was at least making enough money to stay open and the couple lived
off Tanya's paycheck from the high-tech industry.

But he wanted to move the retail portion of his business to a storefront on
Main Street and to add food and beverages, to turn it into what he describes
as a "destination retail" business.

"We wanted a place that when you entered, you felt like you were stepping
into the pages of Sunset Magazine," he said. "We wanted all the components
of catering to one's body, soul and mind that we feel consumers are missing
today. When consumers go shopping, they see products lined up on linear
shelves. It leaves you with a really empty feeling. We wanted to change
that, to merchandise things in a holistic way."

Mejia saw Elements as a place where patrons could buy anything they could
feel, taste, touch or see. "You could leave with the fountain that you sat
next to or the bistro table that you ate at," he said. "The whole
environment is for sale."

But to reach that point, Mejia had some major remodeling to do. He also
needed to maintain a cash flow through the sale of plant stands, planter
boxes, statuaries, soaps and wrought-iron fixtures. But business dropped
precipitously this winter in part due to heavy -- and ill-timed -- rain.
Mejia, who estimates his revenues are one-quarter of last winter's, burned
through his savings, used most of a $50,000 loan he took out against his
house and seriously alienated his wife before turning in desperation to
eBay.

"I didn't know who else or how else to ask for help," he said. "I needed a
cathartic forum, so I opened eBay and figured the worst that could happen is
that I would lose 25 bucks for my listing. At least my wife and my friends
and those people who had been around me for the last four or five years
would understand where I am and where I've been."

Tanya Mejia said she was surprised her husband went the eBay route but added
that she was "pretty touched" to read his posting there.

"I don't know if it's going to work," she said of the karma sale. "But it
certainly brought the two of us closer together. Over the weekend, I wasn't
sure what I wanted to do. But after reading it, it made me take a second
look.

"If nothing else, I look at it as a Hallmark card for me."

mans best friend

http://www.recordnet.com/daily/news/...2505-gn-1.php#
Lode Man Selling Good Karma on eBay
Unusual product pitch is way to keep his business afloat
By Francis P. Garland
Lode Bureau Chief
Published Friday, February 25, 2005


MURPHYS -- Chris Mejia's eclectic courtyard shop on Main Street is hardly
your garden-variety garden store.
Its mix of mirrors, body lotion, bird baths and fountains gives the place a
sort of Victoria's Secret-meets-Orchard Supply Hardware feel.

But the potpourri, soap-by-the-inch and scented candles are hardly the most
unusual items for sale at Elements Garden & Home.

Mejia's also hawking good karma.

He made his pitch this week on eBay, hoping to attract support for his
cash-strapped business and, in the process, keep his life intact.

He's already had a few buyers, including an old friend from France who has
offered to provide him $100 a month until the money runs out or Mejia's
business recovers.

A 30-year-old Vermont woman also has offered to auction off space on her
body -- specifically her arms, back, shoulders, legs or stomach -- for a
tattoo advertisement, and she's willing to split the proceeds with Mejia.

The responses have been somewhat overwhelming for Mejia, who turns 34 today.

"I don't know what to say," he said Thursday from his Main Street shop. "I
heard from a gentleman in Richmond, Ind. this morning who just about had me
in tears."

The man said he was out of work and was going for a job interview today --
and still promised to send money.

"All he asked is that we say a prayer for him and his wife, who has had some
complications with her pregnancy," said Mejia. "It was pretty touching and
powerful."


In the world of some eastern religions, karma is the fundamental doctrine of
actions and consequences -- actions that will trigger consequences in this
or future lifetimes.

One Stockton-area Buddhist said Thursday that karma was a concept that can't
be bought or sold.

"It's preposterous," said Brother James Percival, the abbot at Stockton's
Middlebar Buddhist Monastery.

Percival said the mere act of trying to sell good karma could induce bad
karma. "It's a confidence scheme of some sort," he said. "I guess it just
takes a sucker, unfortunately. And the Internet has opened up alleyways for
people to find victims."

Thich Dat Tin, a monk at the Vietnamese Buddhist Association in Stockton,
was less critical.

"If he is good and truly means what he says, and that he receives an
offering and makes good on it, he will benefit and the (buyer) will
benefit," he said of Mejia. "The action of the receiver is very important
and because I don't know the person, I can't make any judgment."

Gretchen Thomson of Murphys laughed when she heard of Mejia's bid to sell
karma. "Karma isn't for sale," she said Thursday on Main Street. "Like most
of the important things in life, it can't be bought."

Mejia, who grew up in Calaveras County and returned home about three years
ago to open a business after losing his telecommunications job to
downsizing, said he resorted to the karma ad as a last resort to save his
business -- and his life.

He and his wife, Tanya, opened their first version of Elements in Angels
Camp in 2002 but moved to Murphys a short time later. The self-professed
"dreamer" is the son of Terri Stickles, who won a bronze swimming medal at
the 1964 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, and Alvaro Mejia, a Columbian
Olympian who won the Boston Marathon the year Chris was born.

His job loss left him depressed for a while but also spurred him to create
plans for Elements. He had big ideas; he saw Elements as the cornerstone to
a "retail brand bigger than Target," one that would rival Martha Stewart.

Mejia said things were going along fine the first couple of years -- his
business was at least making enough money to stay open and the couple lived
off Tanya's paycheck from the high-tech industry.

But he wanted to move the retail portion of his business to a storefront on
Main Street and to add food and beverages, to turn it into what he describes
as a "destination retail" business.

"We wanted a place that when you entered, you felt like you were stepping
into the pages of Sunset Magazine," he said. "We wanted all the components
of catering to one's body, soul and mind that we feel consumers are missing
today. When consumers go shopping, they see products lined up on linear
shelves. It leaves you with a really empty feeling. We wanted to change
that, to merchandise things in a holistic way."

Mejia saw Elements as a place where patrons could buy anything they could
feel, taste, touch or see. "You could leave with the fountain that you sat
next to or the bistro table that you ate at," he said. "The whole
environment is for sale."

But to reach that point, Mejia had some major remodeling to do. He also
needed to maintain a cash flow through the sale of plant stands, planter
boxes, statuaries, soaps and wrought-iron fixtures. But business dropped
precipitously this winter in part due to heavy -- and ill-timed -- rain.
Mejia, who estimates his revenues are one-quarter of last winter's, burned
through his savings, used most of a $50,000 loan he took out against his
house and seriously alienated his wife before turning in desperation to
eBay.

"I didn't know who else or how else to ask for help," he said. "I needed a
cathartic forum, so I opened eBay and figured the worst that could happen is
that I would lose 25 bucks for my listing. At least my wife and my friends
and those people who had been around me for the last four or five years
would understand where I am and where I've been."

Tanya Mejia said she was surprised her husband went the eBay route but added
that she was "pretty touched" to read his posting there.

"I don't know if it's going to work," she said of the karma sale. "But it
certainly brought the two of us closer together. Over the weekend, I wasn't
sure what I wanted to do. But after reading it, it made me take a second
look.

"If nothing else, I look at it as a Hallmark card for me."