Home game buy-ins/blind structure

[Dodoubled]

So I did something tonight I haven't done in a long, long time ... I bailed on a friend's home poker tournament that I had been looking forward to for several weeks.

Here's why: I was stuck at work about an hour late, and when I called to see how things were progressing, I was told I could still make it in for the end of the rebuy period (entry was $50, and rebuys were allowed through the first three blind levels, and blinds increased every half hour). Everything seemed cool.

I asked them what level they were on, and he said "20/40." I then asked him how many chips each player started with, and he said, "500." He then said the game started at 10/20.



So if I bought in, assuming the next level kicked to 30/60, I'd be sitting, basically, with nine BB -- already a shove/fold situation in most cases. And even if I had bought in at the beginning, I'm only sitting with 25 BB, which seems incredibly thin.
So I said, "No, thanks," and went to the bar to watch Billy Packer declare, "This game is over," at 7:39 remaining in the first half of Kansas/UNC.

Anyhow, just for future reference, when you guys run your own home games (and especially tournaments), how do you structure them? How many chips is each player allotted, how quickly do you tend to increase blinds, and at what increments? Do you keep the increases consistent (say, 10/20 to 20/40 to 30/60 to 40/80), or do you prefer bigger leaps? I'd like to get some feedback on this so I can pass it on. Something just didn't seem right about tonight.