Epilogue: Yellow Mountain Imports responds to my blog

I received an email from Pong Yen at Yellow Mountain Imports this morning and I thought I should share it with all of you. It's good that they're monitoring their customers' feedback and it should raise your confidence level if you're a prospective buyer.

As always, you should patiently work with your vendors if any merchandise you receive is not to your satisfaction.

Hello Chiyodad!

We came across your blog and appreciate your clear and balanced review on our company's goban. I would just like to let you know of the many steps to improve the quality of the boards and the packing standards. We have only recently entered the Go market and so our first batch had a few problems of which we hope to clear completely for out next shipment of boards in January.

In our first batch of goban we made the mistake of having the manufacturer ship directly to our warehouse Los Angeles. The next shipment all our boards carefully inspected and screened in our China warehouse before they even leave for our warehouse in Los Angeles. We will accept or reject the boards on the spot.

Secondly, we've had quite a lot of problems with the custom packaging the manufacturer provided us. They ensured us it was good enough for shipping. However we have found out otherwise, and will from now pre-pack everything ourselves with heavy gauge cardboard box and 6cm thick styrofoam packaging on all sides.

Our goal is to provide a great goban set at accessable prices that arrives safely and promptly at your door. Yeah!

Best regards,
Pong Yen
--
Yellow Mountain Imports
155 West Washington Blvd
Suite 605
Los Angeles, CA 90015

e pong@ymimports.com

w www.ymimports.com

In other news

If I can, I'll be taking a couple of days away from my PC (Yeah. Sure ... you believe that.) so my left eye can recover from a minor retina burn.

I'm also rather exhausted from work. I've been working some odd hours to deal with issues from both Scotland and Japan. In today's corporation, the sun never sets.

Awww! I missed!

Sadly, one of my coworkers left for her nephew's wedding in Japan without telling me in advance. I could have ordered a set of slate-and-shell stones from Mr. Kuroki and had him ship it to her. Oh well! Next time!

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

On the environmental activism front, the National Resources Defence Council just informed me that pro-drilling senators had sneaked their Arctic drilling measures into the Defense Appropriations bill. Given their long pro-environmental records, I already know that California's senators Feinstein and Boxer will demand that these be stripped out; but many senators will be under pressure to vote "Yes" on this bill lest they be branded as not being supportive of our military.

Senators on both sides of the aisle agree that Arctic drilling provisions do not belong in a defense bill. I've been trying to call their Washington offices but the lines are busy. A vote could take place as early as Saturday.