It's Wacky Wednesday!!!

Yes, this is my son!  Now you may be wondering what in the world is going on here or you may be saying that there is no way that this could be my son given the amount of hair on his head.  I assure you that this is Mr. Reid himself!  I can also assure you that this is the one day of the year that he gets to wear his hair like this!

Reid is attending The Challenger British Soccer Camp this week and today is Wacky Wednesday!  All of the kids will show up for camp with weird hairdo's or wacky outfits.  They really have a great time and the coaches make this camp a lot of fun.  There are about 50 kids participating this week and Reid has enjoyed himself and learned some much needed soccer skills.  If you have a camp like this in your area you should send your kid.  It is a very well run camp and these coaches from across the pond can teach more soccer than anybody from South Georgia will ever know!

Have a great Wacky Wednesday!!!

Is it warm in here or is it just me????

I don't really think you need me to say very much about this picture.  South Georgia heat mixed with a black hard top Jeep will get you these results!!  Please send me some cooler weather!!

Give Away Winners!

No more giveaways for this blogger!  My little giveaway project was not much of a success as only the "fab four" left me a comment.  So in the words of the Duckman, "this is how I roll"!  All of you are winners of the BEHWAB's giveaway.  I will send each of you a bag of smoker wood just for being the loyal followers that you are.

So Ian, LB,and Rabid,  I need you to send me your shipping address to treyluckie@yahoo.com.  Tell me which kind of wood you would like and I'll get it out to you.  Duckman, I already have your address and even though you volunteered to bow out of the contest I'm going to send you a bag too!

I look forward to seeing what you prepare and how the product works for you!

Thanks for playing!

It's Give Away Time!!

The Downeast Duckhunter suggested that I might want to have a giveaway for the product that I endorsed in my last post.  I got to thinking and figured it was about time that I shared the love and had a give away of my own.  I called my buddy Mike Baxter and he has agreed to provide me with three bags of his wood smoking product.  He is giving me one bag of Peach chips, one bag of Cherry chips and one bag of Pecan chips for your smoking needs.  How do you enter??  Simple!!

You must be a follower of this blog.  You can start following today if you want to, but you must have your picture or your name in the "Followers" section on the right.  You must leave me a comment telling me how you intend to use the wood chips.  Ian, this especially goes for you as I copy all of your recipes that you post!  I will take all of the entries and place every one's name into a hat and draw the winner on Sunday afternoon.  If you choose to leave a comment that also includes you making fun of the Duckman in some shape form or fashion, I will put your name in the hat twice!!  (Rabid, you are only limited to 10 jabs, more or less).

If I get more than 20 comments, I will give away the three bags to three different winners.  Less than 20 comments, and I will give all three bags to one winner.  So go out and get people to stop by for a chance at a great prize!

Your comments may begin....NOW!!!

Smoke it if you got it! BBQ that is!

It has often been said that if you can find something that you enjoy doing and make it your job, then you will always wake up wanting to go to work.  I can appreciate someone that takes a hobby and turns it into a way to make a living.  I would venture to guess that those people are extremely happy to go to work each day.  Why wouldn't they be??  Imagine if you could hunt or fish everyday for a living, or play a favorite sport.  Wouldn't you jump at that chance??

I have a friend that is trying and succeeding at doing just that very thing.  His hobby has now become his life.  Mike Baxter of Fitzgerald, GA has taken his love for turning raw meat into bone sucking good eats to the next level.  Not only is Mike garnering quite a reputation as a BBQ Master in cooking competitions, he is also manufacturing his own wood chips to create an award winning smokey taste that all true BBQ lovers crave.

How did this happen?  Pretty simple really.  Mike likes to smoke his BBQ.  He would often purchase wood chips in bags from the store, only to find that they were too small or too large for his cooking needs.  Any true BBQ master will tell you that the smoke is where the flavor comes from and the size of your wood chips can be very important to get the best smoke possible in your alotted cooking time.  Mike frequently found himself with hatchet in hand trimming his store bought wood chunks to fit his cooking needs.  Being the entrepreneurial type, a light clicked on in Mike's head and Baxter's Original was born.

You can get an idea of the size of the wood chucks here!

Baxter's Originals is not a fancy wancy kind of company that will fill you with a lot of fluff!  Mike still cuts all of his wood with his hatchet and bags the wood chips in small burlap bags with his logo spray painted on the side of the bag.  Not a lot of frills, but you do get one heck of a product that is excellent for your grilling and smoking needs.  All you do is soak a few pieces of his wood in water or your favorite juice for about 20 minutes and then add them to your heat.  You are now smoking with Baxter's Original smoke!!  What kind of wood you might ask??  Depends on the flavor you want!  He has anything from Apple to Walnut!  I even add these chips to my Holland grill surface and they smoke really well without burning up too quickly like a smaller wood chip might do.  For those of you who have a Holland grill, you know that it is hard to get that smokey taste because the Holland is not much more than an outdoor oven, but with Baxter's wood chips I can get smoke pouring out of both stacks.

Mike has been in business for almost two years now, and though he has not been able to quite quit his day job just yet, he says that the business is continuing to grow and he has shipped product to all 50 states as well as Canada, Germany and the Neverlands.  He says that they fill about 100 orders a week and that his best business comes from repeat customers.  He is even sponsoring the St. Louis Style Cooking Team that has done quite well on the competition BBQ circuit in the Central Texas BBQ Association!

A winning combination!  Baxter Smoke and grilled pig parts!

So how do you get your hands on some of this Baxter Smoke making wood?  Just click on the link above or go to http://www.baxtersoriginal.com/ and take a look at his website.  Pick out what products you want and hit the little order button.  I promise you will not be dissapointed in his product.  I can not however promise that you will automatically turn into a grilling master like Mr. Baxter shown below!

Editors Note: Mike did not pay me to write this review.  I did this because I believe in his product and his determination to make his company work, although I would not turn down a T-shirt or a rib dinner if it was offered!

Smoke on Bax!!!

Who knew?? Blogging really pays!!

 

It never fails!  It is always the same thing no matter where I go.  I can hear the question coming from a mile away.  It goes something like this...

"Can I have your name?"

My name is Trey Luckie.

"Luckie huh?  Are you really lucky??"

I have become immune to it by now.  I just usually respond by saying that I am indeed a "lucky" person and that I seem to do OK.  I really do consider myself a lucky person in the fact that I have been so blessed, but I know what they mean when they ask "Are you lucky?".  They want to know if with a last name like "Luckie", do I have some sort of magical horse shoe or rabbits foot in my back pocket.  The answer is YES!!!!

Let's look back over the past few months.  When I started blogging I knew nothing of blogger give aways or contest.  I saw the first blogger give away on my Mom's blog.  Seemed like a bunch of women were giving away little items to get people to follow their blogs.  It sounded like a pretty good idea to me.  My Mom even won one of the little contest. 

Along comes the Outdoor Blogger Network!  The OBN starts having weekly gear review opportunities for its members.  Simply agree to write a product review on your blog and you can enter yourself for a chance to receive some pretty cool products.  I started doing just that.  My first winner was a gun cleaning kit from Otis Technologies.  It was kind of exciting to win this little game, so I branched out and started a pretty impressive little winning streak, much to the dismay of my good buddy The Downeast Duck Hunter and to the fine lady at Bullets and Biscuits!  Here are my blogger winnings to date...

Otis Technologies Gun Cleaning kit- OBN Gear review

Top Shot Fan kit including a T-shirt, season one DVD, shot glass and phone cover- Scent Free Lip Gloss giveaway

Scavenger Hunt which included $50 Bass Pro Shop gift card, one pair of Magnum Boots, several packages of Jerky from the House of Jerky, and an outdoor cookbook.  It also included a bonus prize from my friend at Bullets and Biscuits.  A jar of the best grape jelly I have ever had!- Ben G Outdoors

Bait casting Reel- OBN Gear review (I have not received it yet)

Not a bad little run!  I admit that I look forward to these little contest and the prizes that come along with them.  I continue to register at the OBN for gear reviews and I am determined to win the giveaway that is currently happening over at Bullets and Biscuits just because she called me out!!  Check it out as she is giving away some strawberry/banana spread!

Until the next contest!!  GOOD LUCK!!!

Soaring on Paper Wings!

Wednesday night marked the end of the year for our RA group at church.  It has been a great year with some great kids.  We will pick back up in a couple of months when school starts back and we are already planning on expanding our program to include more outdoor activities that encourage the boys to participate in different projects.  We try to make it fun for them, but we also require them to do the work.  One of the things that I think that we do well is reward the kids that put forth the effort.  For example, this little glider that you see here was built by Reid and me.  He got to build this because he completed his Missions folder for the year and also completed his requirements for his Athletic patch that is placed on his chart in the RA room.  To complete the Athletic patch requirements, he had to do 200 push ups, sit ups and leg raises.  The boys have all year to get this done.  They can come in and do 10 or 20 a week of each one and eventually get to 200.  Out of Reid's age group, we had 4 boys complete both their folder and receive their athletic patch.  That meant that 4 boys got a chance to put together a glider and fly them on the last Wednesday of RA's.

These little gliders can be found in a kit by White Wings.  The wings are cut out and glued together and then glued onto the body of the plane.  This was our first attempt at building one of these planes and we really did not have any directions to go by, as our Sr. RA leader provided the materials but couldn't find copies of the instructions.  I tried to build it strong with some extra glue as I figured some mighty big crash landings were in this little plane's foreseeable future.  We flew it in the yard a few times and I told Reid not to expect too much.  I could throw it about 30 or 40 feet, but it was definitely not gliding gracefully.  I was curious as to what it would do once it was placed on a rubber band launcher.  You can see the hook on the bottom of the plane where the band can be attached for launch.  We loaded up the little plane and hoped for the best.

When we got to church the first thing Mr. Larry (Sr. RA leader) said to us was that we had our wings glued on backwards.  Well there was no changing that now and I told him that my good buddy Hal would be arriving with the same problem.  He brought his son's plane over to compare to Reid's to see how to put it together.  We ended up with only 3 planes to fly and two of them had backwards wings.  This was not looking good.  It got worse for one kid!

The competition for "Plane of the Year" was simple.  All planes would be measured for distance flown and time in flight.  Records would be kept and the name of the winner would be displayed on the records board for the next year.  Our fist contestant gave his plane to Mr. Larry to launch from the rubber band launcher.  As Larry let the plane fly, the plane's tail wing caught on the launching stick and broke the plane in half.  The kid had glued his tail wings to the bottom of the plane body instead of the top.  The kid was crushed and Mr. Larry spent the next few minutes trying to complete a patch job (or a small miracle).  He gave me the launcher and Hal took the measuring tape.

I took Reid's little plane in hand and gave the rubber band a mighty pull.  The plane ducked and dived to respectable 67 feet.  We hooked up the next plane and it flew pretty close to the same distance.  I kept launching the little planes at different angles trying to get that one great flight.  We got  up to around 100ft, but we were only getting about 8 seconds of flight time.  Mr. Larry returned with the patched up plane and saw the troubles we were having.  He showed me a few little tweaks for the wings and I loaded up the next glider.  Off she went and set sail.  We got her out to 150 feet and had her in the air for about 18 seconds.  The kids were going nuts.  I took Reid's glider in hand and made the same little adjustments to the wings.  When I shot it into the air I knew we were going to be tough to beat.  It flew straight up into the air and started gliding down in a straight line path riding the wind as it went.  The final tally of that one flight was 177 feet and an air time of 22 seconds.  Reid won "The Plane of the Year"!  His glider will be displayed all year in the RA room as a reminder of his accomplishment.  Just imagine what we could have done if his wings were actually on the plane the correct way!!

I like stuff like this.  This was a simple little project that Reid and I could share together and have some fun doing.  I just ordered us a glider making kit so that we can continue to have some fun this summer.  I found it at Amazon.com under White Wing Gliders.  It was only $19.00 but I can guarantee you that we will get more than $19 worth of fun out of it.

RA's has been good for Reid this year.  It has been good for me also.  We have learned to tie knots, race Pinewood Derby cars and fly gliders, but we have also learned about being good missionaries for God and what it means to be graceful, thankful, good Christian young men.  Mr. Larry has been teaching these boys for several years and I am glad that I was able to come back on board after a few years off.  I found that I have missed seeing the boys each week and trying to make a difference in their Christian lives.  I hope that they will take what we are trying to teach them each week and learn to soar higher than these paper airplanes.  They all have so much potential to accomplish whatever God has laid out before them.  I just hope that we have given them enough to see that if they keep Jesus in their life and put him first, anything is possible. 

Even a record setting paper glider with backward wings!