Dale, you don't mention what happend to leave you at just $1000 in chips. Did you just lose a hand to come to that amount or had you been folding for a few circuits beforehand ? Also it would be helpful if you had mentioned the other stack sizes.

The blinds seem to be quite high. One very important thing you need to do when the blinds get higher is to attempt to steal other players blinds. This can keep your stack at a constant or even slightly rising level until you do hit a good hand. Just waiting for a good hand when the blinds are high will be disadvantageous to your stack size.

When your stack is becoming small there comes a time when you need to throw all your chips in the middle and see how you fare. Different people will give different answers to thi but if I'm down to 3-5 blinds left then any bet I make will be all in. The idea of this is to say to the other players that if they want to win your chips they will have to risk a fair proportion of there stacks. It also means that if you do double up you will win a fair amount of chips. If you wait too long then you get into the situation you had.