First Peek Ultrasound Blog

The 3D ultrasound blog of the Chicagoland area

Archive for category Fun stuff

Sales tax on services?

Oct 7

Posted by firstpeek in Fun stuff | No Comments

At First Peek Ultrasound, we do not charge sales tax because we are a service.

I have noticed many services charging sales tax to its customers, from Kinko’s to other 3D ultrasound companies, which is not necessary, and I wonder if these companies are unscrupulously keeping the sales tax revenue or actually ignorantly passing these on to the state government.  Even many restaurants will unknowingly charge sales tax on the entire amount of a delivery purchase, on the price of the food and on the price of the delivery, whereas sales tax should not be charged on the amount of the delivery.  Domino’s and Papa John’s make sure that they charge the sales tax separately.  As far as Kinko’s is concerned, I have talked to the employees and the manager as to why they charge sales tax on copies, faxes, and even services where I clearly do not get anything back, such as cutting and folding brochures.  All I get are blank stares.  I have called the corporate number, and all I got was a cookie-cutter response that “we charge sales tax on all our services.”

Whenever you make any big purchase and get it delivered, check your receipt and make sure you are paying the sales tax on the item purchase amount and not also on the delivery charge.  I have had furniture delivered, where the delivery charge can be as high as the price of the furniture itself sometimes, where the sales tax was applied to both. 

If anyone has made similar observations, if anyone knows where this “sales tax” revenue actually goes, or if anyone has ever gotten out of paying the sales tax, we would love to hear from you.

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First Peek Ultrasound recalls all 3D ultrasounds

Sep 30

Posted by firstpeek in Fun stuff | 1 Comment

In the largest recall of the industry, the Chicago-based 3D ultrasound studio, First Peek Ultrasound, has declared a nationwide recall of its 3D ultrasounds.

First Peek Ultrasound will recall over a thousand 3D ultrasounds, the company’s largest recall, to address problems with certain 3D ultrasounds that may be too cute to publish.

The owner of First Peek Ultrasound was found leaving the ultrasound studio, crossing Lake Street in Oak Park, IL, wearing dark sunglasses and a stethoscope to get away from the media. When pressed for a comment, he said:

It was never our intention, when we first started this company in 2008, that pregnant moms would be sending their baby’s 3D ultrasound images en masse over the latest gadgets and technology, such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and sites like baby-gaga.com and The Bump. We thought moms would just quietly show their baby’s pictures to other moms at a baby shower. Now, you can’t visit a pregnant woman’s Facebook page without being barraged by her 3D ultrasound pictures.

Experts in the field have stated that these “too-cute-to-publish” 3D ultrasound pictures and 4D ultrasound videos would cause internet accelerators (folks who do nothing but check out blogs and post the articles on other blogs) to get stuck and lead to a crash of the world wide web.

“The cuteness factor of the internet could accelerate out of control, leading to envy, malicious posting, and other bad things,” the AAIAAIA said (American Association of Internet Advisors And Industry Association).

The recall will involve popular ultrasound packages such as the First Peek Package, the top-selling 3D ultrasound package in the Chicago area, and the Gender Check, the best-selling 2D-3D hybrid, and the Premium Package, the “Lexus” of 3D ultrasound packages.

First Peek said it was still working with officials to find a remedy to fix the problem and said customers of First Peek Ultrasound could be notified about the recall as early as next week. First Peek spokesman, Sarah, said that until the company finds a fix, owners should take out the removable 3D ultrasound images from the main profile pictures of their Facebook page and not replace it.

AAAIAAIA (Another American Association of Internet Advisors And Industry Association) said that it had received reports of 103 incidents in which the internet may have become stuck on the Facebook pages involved. It was unclear how many led to crashes, but the inquiry was prompted by a highspeed crash in Chicago of a First Peek Ultrasound’s 3D ultrasound image being forwarded out of control on a personal mommyblog. As the cute baby pictures hit speeds exceeding 8000 kilobytes per second, the pregnant mom made a frantic 404 call and said the internet was stuck and they couldn’t stop the cuteness. The website was immediately pulled off the internet with a grinding halt.

“This is an urgent matter!” First Peek’s safety and recall manager, Josef, said in a statement. “For everyone’s sake, we strongly urge owners of these 3D ultrasound images to remove their cute baby pictures that could lead to unintended internet acceleration.”

3D ultrasound image that caused the first crash in Skokie:
3D ultrasound image that caused the first crash in Skokie

3D ultrasound that led to the high-speed crash in dowtown Chicago:
peace

Another less noteworthy recall that happened to involve Toyota, which was eerily similar to First Peek Ultrasound’s recall.

Should your 3D ultrasound be recalled? Please email us your cute 3D ultrasound pictures from First Peek Ultrasound to be included in our 3D ultrasound gallery.

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First Peek Ultrasound is now H1N1-compliant :/)\

Sep 25

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First Peek Ultrasound is proud to be the first 3D ultrasound studio in the nation to declare that we are H1N1-compliant.

As our customers are pregnant women in Chicago, the Chicago suburbs, and the entire midwest, we need to make sure that we are not contributing to the H1N1 pandemic.

Here is what we are doing so far to ensure that we are H1N1-compliant.  At First Peek Ultrasound, you should not have to worry about catching, spreading, or receiving the swine flu at our facility.  This is the Pandemic Influenza Plan of First Peek Ultrasound.

  1. All employees of First Peek Ultrasound are required to have the flu shot, unless there are medical exceptions.
  2. When the swine flu vaccine is available, all employees will be required to get the swine flu vaccine.
  3. Employees are not allowed to come to work if they have symptoms of the flu or if they have a fever.  In these cases, another ultrasound technician will have to cover the shift, or in cases where all available employees are sick, appointments may need to be cancelled.
  4. Our ultrasound technicians use hand gel to sanitize their hands before seeing each customer.
  5. During the height of the swine flu pandemic outbreak, ultrasound technicians will wear a mask to protect spread of the virus from one customer to another.
  6. Any customer who is sick with flu symptoms or is known to have the swine flu will have to reschedule their appointment, in order to minimize the spread of the virus to other pregnant women.
  7. If a customer arrives to the clinic with obvious flu symptoms, such as coughing, sneezing, or a fever, then the customer will have to reschedule their appointment.  This is in order to protect our staff and other customers from getting sick.
  8. We encourage all of our customers to get the flu shot and the swine flu vaccine when it becomes available.

We encourage all other 3D ultrasound centers to follow our lead.  You can feel free to take and adapt our Pandemic Influenza Plan for your own 3D ultrasound center.  If you have any questions, please feel free to call or email us.

Do you have any other suggestions or recommendations on helping us become more H1N1-compliant?  Feel free to leave your comments below.

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First Peek Ultrasound is going green!

Sep 17

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First Peek Ultrasound is going green! We recycle our paper and ink cartridges, and now we are motivated by this trend of going green and we want to get in on the action.

Here are the many ways that First Peek Ultrasound is more green than any other 3D ultrasound studio in the Chicago area or, as a matter of fact, in the country.

1. We reduce carbon emissions by being closer to where you live, as we are more centrally located in the Chicagoland area.

2. We use a laundry service that only uses organic detergent and does not use phosphates. This prevents the mass bleaching and death of coral reefs.

3. We recycle all our paper products (except the toilet paper).

4. Our 3D ultrasounds are dolphin-safe. We assure you, no dolphins will be killed during your 3D ultrasound session.

5. We turn off the lights when we leave the room.

6. We use those funny-looking spiral lightbulbs in the lamp in our ultrasound room.

7. If you do not want printouts of your pictures, we will gladly e-mail them to you instead.

8. Our ultrasound technicians eat healthy food and one of them is a vegetarian.

9. The owner of First Peek Ultrasound lives locally and so does not waste gasoline in driving to the ultrasound studio, thus reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

10. Our baby heartbeat teddy bears can be reused once your baby is born as a nice toy for your baby.

11. We use organic oils for our prenatal massage.

12. If you don’t want a receipt, we will not print one out for you. If every 3D ultrasound company across the nation did this, we would save six trees every year.

What other ways can you think of for us to go green? Please give us any recommendations you may have.

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