Funny enough, Mrs. C. basically said "You're not stupid, you know there will be some sort of big to-do for your 40th, so rather than try to hide it and surprise you, I'll just enlist you to smoke pork, since you enjoy it so much". Now supposedly my brother will be coming as well and he's well versed in BBQ enough that he can handle this himself whilst I enjoy myself, so it isn't like my whole birthday bash will be spent babysitting the smoker (although that IS pretty enjoyable). We've toyed with the idea of having someone in to do a whole pig kinda thing, but if I do pulled pork myself, I know it will get done right. There won't be any half-assed chewy or tough meat going on, if it's in my hands. I would prefer that my friends all walk away groaning over how good it was as opposed to saying to themselves "meh, the pork wasn't that good".