Melamine and you

This week, I made a quick visit to the FDA lab in Irvine, California. The FDA uses one of our instruments, a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer (seen here) or LC-MS/MS, to analyze various food products for the presence of Melamine and Cyanuric Acid. These are the compounds you may have heard about in the news recently, found in products from pet food to infant formula to chicken, pork and fish. The good news is that we're pretty safe here in the US, as long as we stay away from food products produced in China, especially if they contain dairy ingredients. The bad news is that some of the products we find a the store contain ingredients that may come from China, but that information isn't on the label. For the most part, melamine isn't too toxic for adults, so the trace amounts that have been detected aren't really too much for adults to worry about. However, it sort of makes you mad that certain food producers are putting these chemicals in our food products in order to make a litte bit more money. Luckily, the FDA is inspecting our food (using the best Mass Spectrometers on the market, Thermo Scientific!), and working hard to keep us safe.

False Advertising?

Here's a picture of Rudy's Country store and Bar-b-q from Round Rock, TX. I was in Austin again last week for work, at a software meeting. Now if you look closely at the small print, you'll notice that Rudy's has the "worst Bar-b-q in Texas!" I ate it anyway, and I can tell you they surely are lying, as this stuff was amazing. The cool part about this particular Rudy's is that it's built into a gas station. My buddy Jamie from work, who is a native Texan, told me that this is how the Rudy's stores are out in the middle of nowhere, so even though this one is in the middle of suburbia/stripmall land, they keep up the theme. I went to lunch with my co-workers, Peter from China and Yoko from Japan (don't worry, it's not that Yoko, this one never would have broken up the Beatles). Peter and I are going to open up a Rudy's BBQ in China some day if we lose our jobs over here. He's convinced that the Chinese would love some good ol' fashioned "worst BBQ in TX," and there would be lines going out the door. I'd believe him too, this was his second vist to Rudy's in 2 days, and he loved it!

Regular Old Trip to San Jose

Nothing too exciting to see here. This is an Airbus 319 at SFO that was just outside the gate where I was sitting, awaiting my flight back to Boston. In the background are 3 747-400s at the international wing of the airport. It's such a good looking plane. These are probably on their way over to Asia, based on the time of day. Take note of the guy in the raincoat on the tarmac on the bike. Looks like they use bikes to get around the tarmac at SFO, way to go!