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News Archive: 2004

  • 25 December 2004- Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!
  • 20 December 2004- In an attempt to send birdseed houses to relatives for Christmas, Francesca ordered two of one particular style (an FTD edible birdhouse, ordered through Amazon.) She then proceeded to get (as Dave Barry would say, we swear we are not making this up) -- THIRTEEN phone calls about the order. First FTD wanted to know if she meant to order two. Yes. Then Amazon wanted to know if she meant to order two. Still yes. Then FTD called twice more wanting to make sure she wanted two. Yes (but this was becoming rather weird.) Then FTD called to say they were fixing it. And that they were still trying to fix it. And so the calls kept coming, all day long, into the early evening. She begged them to stop calling starting around 3 PM. Three phone calls later, she was becoming afraid to answer the phone. FTD started to apologize for having to call again -- it seems their brilliant computer system doesn't allow more than a quantity of 1 per item (sounds like somebody's got seeds for brains), and it was causing great trouble. Why did they feel the need to share all of this? We have no idea. We think they finally shipped the birdhouses. But beware -- there must be some sort of national rationing of edible birdhouses. (Note to Francesca...next time send gift certificates to Amazon, and then let your relatives go through this torment instead!)
  • 15 December 2004- Welcome aboard to Aimee! She's pretty quiet, but we hear she jumps a crazy trampoline...
  • 25 November 2004- Good luck to this year's employees who are once again competing in the North American Table Tennis Teams Tournament in Baltimore. And with team names like "Monkeys versus Donkeys" how could they not win? Or at least have fun...
  • 19 November 2004- Why aren't table umbrellas available in Winter? From California to Canada and down to Florida, they are "out of season." Surely someone other than us needs table umbrellas for indoor dining? Well, maybe not. Guess we're just weird.
  • 16 November 2004- Know any obsessively accurate medical coders? We are expanding our coding department, and looking for someone who falls asleep counting ICD-9 codes instead of sheep. Know someone? Send us a resume in care of Human Resources.
  • 4 November 2004- YEI helped to sponsor a student design team at Michigan State University for their design of a special needs bicycle for elementary students with Cerebral Palsy. We provided a ServoCenter for use in their control system, along with technical assistance. We look forward to seeing some happy kids on bikes!
  • 2 November 2004- All right -- stop all the political yapping and go vote. Most of us in Ohio are getting just a little bit tired of being pestered non-stop by every candidate and their flock of mouthpieces. Actual political and philosophical discussion would be wonderful. But nobody really wants to talk about anything substantial. Just a bunch of 15-second soundbites, unnecessary innuendos and namecalling, depressing partisanship, and a lot of avoiding the questions. What's wrong in the world? What can we do about it? Difficult questions. So stop looking for easy answers or ones that sound good. What will really work? Much harder and much more complicated. And while we're on the subject of elections, if we require people to take a driving test, why not a basic test of knowledge to vote? Have you seen the TV show "Street Smarts"? And these people are allowed to vote? If you don't know that Texas is a state, we really don't think you should be voting. Just our grouchy election-day rant...
  • 31 October 2004- Trick or Treat, want something sweet? Stop by our office for lots of spiders and candy. (And try to ignore that our spider webs are constantly being rearranged by the curious office cats, one of whom is appropriately all black.)
  • 8 September 2004- To our student interns, good luck in your Fall classes. And Aaron, even better luck to you in the two classes that you get to teach. (Be nice, you were a student once too...but this time around you probably can't sleep through your 8 AM class!)
  • 10 August 2004- Once again we enjoyed our annual company trip to King's Island in Cincinnati, where the staff and their kids enjoyed an assortment of roller coasters, water rides, and way too much sugar... and by the way, thanks to all of you for your hard work!
  • 15 May 2004- Welcome to the world, Connor! 7 lbs, 15 ounces, born at noon. We'll put you to work as soon as you can walk...
  • 15 April 2004- One of our BugBrain(TM) robots was featured on TechTV's ScreenSavers program last weekend. We're hoping he doesn't come home with a movie-star attitude! All that cross-country travel, along with "lights, camera, action," is bound to give him an ego boost. We'll let him and L.O.U.I.E. battle it out later...
  • 14 January 2004- Because product warnings are getting completely ridiculous, we were happy to note that someone else agrees. Visit some of the dumbest excuses for product warnings at Wacky Warnings. Doesn't it make you wonder if it is okay to insert a 5" fishing lure several inches into your ear? After all, the warning only said not to swallow...