Meat and burnable stuff

My first foray into serious smoking began with purchasing meat at Sam's Club. I'm not sure why I chose Sam's Club, but it's a) in the same parking lot as Lowes and I needed some stuff to mod my smoker 2) it's in the same parking lot as the Super Wal-Mart and I was hoping they'd have some Royal Oak lump charcoal which comes highly recommended from this site: http://www.nakedwhiz.com/lumpindexpage.htm?bag, 3) my kid had a birthday party nearby so I could get two hours of complete, unadulterated, poking around time between Lowe's and Sam's Club -- something rate in my life.

At Sam's,  I bought:

1. package of 3 racks of pork shoulder ribs -- $32
2. one very long (30 inches) pork loin roast which I cut into thirds -- $16 something
3. package of 9 pork sausages -- whatever they had -- $9.99
4. 5 lb beef brisket -- around $17

I cooked all but the beef brisket.

At Lowes, I picked up a bag of Cowboy Lump Charcoal and a bag of Stubbs briquettes. I had a bag at home of hickory chunks and I have a nearly a cord of oak firewood for my fireplace that I dipped into for my first smoke. Oak makes a nice hot fire, but too much smoke can apparently kill your meat. And several sites caution to use bark-less wood. Bark can also mess with flavor, apparently.