Did We Just Find The Best Big & Tall Office Chair?

Jody: 00:00:18

This is Heavy Conversation with Bruce and Jody, a podcast where we talk about being a big guy in today's world.

Bruce: 00:00:23

I'm Bruce.

Jody: 00:00:23

And I'm Jody. Here we go.

Bruce: 00:00:28

All right. Here we go.

Jody: 00:00:30

All right.

Bruce: 00:00:33

Hello, Jody.

Jody: 00:00:35

What's going on?

Bruce: 00:00:36

Right as we started recording, right as I hit the record button, a lawnmower started up, so. Oh, yes. So the wonders of technology. If you get any lawnmower sound in the background, Apologies.

Jody: 00:00:50

The low hum of machinery in the background.

Bruce: 00:00:54

Totally. So how's it going?

Jody: 00:00:56

It's good. Chicago weather in. What is it? I don't even know what month it is.

May now has been erratic and it's cold and rainy here today, and it was just like muggy and hot like a couple days ago. So, you know, perfect Midwestern weather. As usual.

Bruce: 00:01:16

I've been busy. I feel like it's. It's been non stop and I mean, it's good.

But you know, it's this week as we're recording, my oldest child turns 15 and yeah, it's crazy growing up fast. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's funny because in some ways, yeah, it's so fast. And then in other ways it's like, nah, this feels about right.

You know, we do a lot more trips or experiences than like gifts. That's generally. Yeah, it's generally what he, what he prefers.

Jody: 00:01:56

Like out to the beach and stuff like that. Or out to the coast.

Bruce: 00:02:00

Right, right. We do things like that. You know, we, we go.

He likes to camp, so he's really like all about camping, which, I mean, if you, if you're gonna do some kind of birthday trip or something, a camping trip, not very expensive, fairly easy. I'm fine with camping, but as I've gotten older, and especially now that I use a cpap, it's a lot more of a pain than it used to be.

So a lot more I have to think about when we do that. So, you know, I think we're still kind of just figuring out what we're going to do, but, you know, it's. We will figure something out soon.

In the meantime, there are some gifts that he wanted, so we're getting a lot of that stuff and just kind of, you know, you know, just gonna, gonna celebrate them and do all, all that good stuff.

Jody: 00:02:50

Nice. Nice. That's fun. Yeah, you. I remember it might have been just last year when you guys went.

Didn't you have like a yurt or like a big thing that you guys went to or something decent, you said, I think.

Bruce: 00:03:04

Yeah, yeah. So we, we did. We Did a yurt and I love the yurts. That's like the way to go.

Especially if you have to have some kind of, you know, if you have to have electric wherever you're staying, then having something like that is great.

I am working on something for Chubster that is kind of a, you know, plus size person's guide to camping and making that a little more convenient when you're a bigger person. Hopefully that'll be out, you know, later as we get into summer. You know, there are ways around kind of the electrical thing.

It's just you have to do it right and there's thought and planning that has to go into all of it. So, yes, the yurts are awesome because they do, for the most part, have electrical hookups. One year we skipped the camping and actually went to.

We took the train from Portland and went up to Seattle and neither of us had ever been on the train before. And so we did that and stayed in a boutique hotel. And. Yeah, and then I.

We were walking around and we walked past a place, this Brazilian steakhouse you know, wanted to go in for, take him to a nice dinner or whatever. And so we did that. And I didn't realize, you know, what, like, level of quality the place was until we were in there and eating.

And it ended up being like, it was almost a 200 meal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was before.

Jody: 00:04:33

And you're like, oh, okay, yeah, I.

Bruce: 00:04:36

Think that was his 13th birthday or something. And so that was. That was not exactly what I was aiming for for. Yeah, so. But by then, you know, what are you gonna do? So he loved it.

Jody: 00:04:47

Yeah, yeah. Endless steak and meats and that whole.

Bruce: 00:04:51

Thing where they, they roll up the cart and it's just like whatever meat you want. It's phenomenal and very filling.

So this week we've got a lot of things to talk about, but I know this week our big thing is we're going to talk about chairs, specifically office chairs and like finding the best one for your needs. Over the years, we've talked a lot about furniture that we have decimated for one reason or another. It hasn't been made for bigger bodies.

It's older stuff.

I mean, I know I've talked about three or four different pieces of furniture or lawn chairs or whatever that I've destroyed or fallen through or whatever. And so a few months ago, the folks at Staples actually sent over their new office chair for big and tall folks.

And it's called the Randolph office chair. And I put it to the test to actually Get a feel for it.

Because I've definitely had a lot of uncomfortable office chairs over the years, and I have absolutely broken one or two that just haven't been. Yeah, but they haven't been ready for me. And so I know we're going to jump into. Into that a little bit.

Jody: 00:06:09

Yeah, I have had so many different. You know, they have, like, those gaming chairs or whatever that are supposed to be more aerodynamic or. Aerodynamic. That's not the word I wanted.

Ergonomic. That's the word. But, yeah, I mean, they're just never quite what you need. I'm currently trying a different sort of setup. I have like a.

I guess it's like an ottoman or like a. Yeah, like an ottoman type thing. I'm just trying something a little bit different to keep me.

Trying to sit upright, because a lot of times in the chairs, I, like, slump and slouch back a little bit too much. Just trying a different. A different way to sit at my desk and try to be productive and alert.

Bruce: 00:06:52

I understand completely that, like, the posture thing, I have the worst. It's. I'm always hunched over. So, yeah, trying to find something.

Like, when I'm looking for a good chair, I do want something that kind of keeps me upright. I don't like a chair that kind of leans you back too much, especially if I'm sitting, trying to work on the couch or something that's different.

But if I'm working, I want something that's going to be really comfortable. This chair is definitely that I can kind of step back. So, you know, when I ordered it and it. And it arrived, it was in this big box.

And I have another chair that I've had for a few years that I put together, and it didn't have great instructions. And I finally got it together, and it is fine. Not great, but fine.

So I was a little intimidated, thinking, okay, I got to put together another chair and. And make this work. I opened it up and pulled everything out.

And the thing that I will say about the staples, this Randolph chair is I see that they put real thought into not just making a chair that would work for bigger or taller people, but also, like a chair that. That is easy to assemble. That when you look at the parts and how they go together, there's real thought put into the way that things connect.

Reinforcement and making it super easy to follow. Like, I opened it up and I took everything out, and there were all of these pouches, and each one it said step one, step two, Or.

Or there would be, like, duplicates. Of. Of a step, and then it would have, like, letters by it. And so then you look at the diagram. All of that stuff matches up. It's plain.

It's super easy to look at it and go, okay, this is what I need to do next. You know, if you've ever ordered anything online, you know that, what that's like.

Jody: 00:08:47

I always have, like, end up having extra things or pieces that I'm like, did they send extras or did I not put it together correctly? I always freak out and, like, have to save all the screws. And that, yeah, really seems helpful.

Bruce: 00:09:03

Yeah. You're like, how did I miss this? What exactly happened here? Yeah, it's always that kind of thing. And so, yeah, this.

This chair, by the time I was done on the last step, there was nothing left. And I mean, it. It works perfectly. I think the other thing that I really like about it is it's simple.

I mean, it's easy to use, but it does have the functionality that you need. You can lock it. You can lock it in specific positions. So if you're kind of leaning back or you want to continue to lean back, you can.

You can lock it. You can. The.

The arms raise up, so if you are a bit wider and you feel like you need more room or you just want the arms up for whatever reason, they swivel and go straight up. The headrest is adjustable, so if you're taller than I am, then you can adjust it in a few different ways and have that longer.

I actually had the chair up pretty high to where my legs were kind of dangling, so I was having to kind of climb to get into the chair, which I was impressed with, not just because it went up so high, but also because when it's up high, it's still. There's a good center of gravity. You don't feel like you're like the chair is going to topple if you push back too far.

Jody: 00:10:22

Nice.

Bruce: 00:10:23

And. And that's something that you don't always get with these chairs. And like I mentioned, I. I have another chair that's.

That's made for bigger folks, and it has all kinds of different settings. I mean, it does all kinds of things. There's. There's, like, you know, paddles that you can switch up and down that lock.

There's a few different kind of dials. They almost look like that you can. That you can turn. I honestly have no idea what half of those things do.

And so, you know, it's one of those things where I. I appreciate the simplicity of this Chair of the Randolph. You know, being able to, it does without an issue. So I know what I'm doing.

I know how I can lock it in. I can move around and kind of go from there. And it is definitely the widest office chair that I've ever had.

So, like, right now I'm, I'm sitting in it now and I have to lean to one side or the other before I can reach the, the armrests. So there's a lot of extra room. And that was pretty impressive to me to actually have something like that. The seat is very wide.

Like I said, I'm, I'm pretty spread out in the chair right now and there's a lot of extra room here and it's, it has a bunch of, you know, it probably would have made sense for me to pull up the article and, you know, look at some of these, some of the specs here that I, that I wrote about, but I did not do that. It's got a lot of extra cushioning in the actual seat. It says five layer foam seat cushion.

So it's really soft and comfortable without being too soft. Like it's supportive, but it's soft and that's.

I don't know if you ever have this problem, but I, if I'm in a chair for too long, especially office chairs or like, you know, a kitchen chair or something like that, it's. Your legs will start to feel it. You got to get up and move around. This doesn't have as much of that. There's kind of like padding everywhere.

And the seat itself has a lot of extra cushion. There's lumbar support and the, the cushion for that is, is really comfortable as well. And yeah, I'm, I'm pretty impressed with kind of the feel.

Jody: 00:12:55

How long have you had it now?

Bruce: 00:12:58

2 months? Month and a half? Yeah.

Jody: 00:13:02

That's a good amount to test it.

Bruce: 00:13:04

Yeah. And I've been using it every day.

I, you know, I've got it out here at my desk set up so that, you know, when I'm writing things or I'm filming or whatever, I've got it here and I'm, you know, and I'm using it all the time. It definitely feels like it's going to hold up.

And like I said, you can really tell, I think when you get into any office chair, especially as a bigger person.

But I'd say anybody, if you get in an office chair and you're working at a desk on a regular basis, you can tell if this chair is going to Be comfortable long term if it's going to last. This one definitely feels like that. I feel like it's gonna. It will, it will last and do well.

The one more thing about the, the seat as far as wide, it's a 24 inch wide seat. So yeah, there's extra width here and it's, it's cozy. So the Randolph office chair. I wrote more in depth.

If you know my stream of consciousness here is a good start for you. But you want to dig into it and take a look over@chubster.com you'll see the, the article.

It's called Tried and Tested Staples Randolph Big and Tall Office Chair review. I'll put a link in the show notes so that you can check it out or you know, go straight to Staples and pick one up for yourself.

I highly recommend it. If you spend your day at a desk doing whatever on a computer. It's well worth it to have something that is comfortable and will last.

Jody: 00:14:36

Very nice. They'll watch your video when we're done. I didn't actually see that you made a whole video too.

Bruce: 00:14:41

I did indeed. So if you don't want to read the in depth review, you don't have to.

You can watch the video and get the whole, get the whole thing there and kind of get a feel for it. I show, you know, I show it in action. I show a lot of the different pieces of it, kind of how, you know, the features, what, what I like.

I lock it into place in a different way and kind of test it out. You can see all of that and see how I actually look at it. Because you can't really fake it in the video. You look at it, you'll see that there's room.

There's actually a lot of extra room there to move around. So. And I'm a pretty wide guy, not tall, five eight. So there's that.

But this is definitely a chair that will work for taller people based on how you adjust it. I've got it pretty low for me because my short legs need to be able to touch the ground.

I did the swinging legs thing for a little while and was like, no, I don't think so. But. So yeah, definitely check it out.

Jody: 00:15:42

It looks, it looks pretty comfy.

Bruce: 00:15:44

So what have you been up to? What have you been spending your time with? Is there anything new that you've gotten into or.

Jody: 00:15:50

Well, I think I kind of mentioned a little bit. So I commute to downtown on the train every day. So trying to pass some of that time, I found an App called Imprint. Yeah, it's a, it's.

It says it's an educational platform designed to help users learn complex concepts from popular books and courses in a visual and interactive way.

So it sort of gamifies some of these books and like self help books and concepts and it's got visual learning, interactive learning, so that you kind of do these little quizzes. They've got lots of, you know, pictures and some animated things that happen.

It just kind of helps break down a lot of these concepts a little bit easier to digest. I'm currently doing one that's called Finding Find meaning and Joy. It's talking about different ways to find joy and meaning.

So currently learning about what's called and I, I might butcher it Ikigai. It's like a Japanese concept of like finding meaning through different practices or things that you like to do.

A lot of them been really prevalent in like studying longevity of people. Like there's a lot of people that are like over 100 years old in different areas and these like blue zones across the world.

But one of them is in Japan and they do these different, I don't know, activities or yeah, I guess like activities. So like a lot of them find a lot of joy in like gardening and cooking and dancing and doing different activities with community and stuff like that.

So it's just been kind of fun to, you know, just making sure in all these tough times that we're finding joy still in life and in things that you do. Some days are better than others.

When you're trying to go to work in the morning, you're like I don't want to go do this, it's boring or I'm over it or whoever at the office maybe you don't want to interact with. But trying to find parts of it that do bring you joy and to focus on those or you know, challenge yourself in different ways, you know.

So I've been doing that a lot, just making goals and goal setting and sort of re evaluating things like that. But yeah, it's kind of a, a good learning tool for me instead of just mindlessly scrolling or whatever on the tik toks that I do.

Bruce: 00:18:24

I love that that's awesome.

Jody: 00:18:25

Blog or anything or not a paid sponsorship or anything. But I'm just something that I am trying to do consciously instead of just this mindless scrolling and do a few lessons to and from work when I go.

So it's kind of fun.

Bruce: 00:18:39

And so it's imprintapp.com and there's all.

Jody: 00:18:44

Kinds of different activities there's a two minute read. Really popular self help books that are in there. All kinds of different things like that.

Check it out if you're looking for something to maybe not mindless, mindlessly scroll so much or just on your commute to work if you're not driving, I guess.

Bruce: 00:19:04

But I love it.

Jody: 00:19:06

I've been enjoying it. Yeah, it's nice to have a little bit of something to expand my horizons and challenge my brain a bit.

Bruce: 00:19:13

Well, yeah, we will add the link to that in the show notes as well so you can check out imprint for yourself.

Jody: 00:19:20

Other than that, I've just been busy, busy, you know, normal stuff. Working and sistering and exploring Chicago and all that stuff.

Bruce: 00:19:29

Awesome. Yeah, I mean that's, that's good. You know, it's fun, fun to be able to explore.

And now we're getting into that season where being outside is generally more fun.

I, I generally, generally I, I do remember from my, you know, three decades in the Midwest that there's a short window where spring is fantastic before summer kind of kicks in. So yeah, hopefully you are able to get out there and enjoy that before the heat cranks in.

So this is the part of the show where we would talk about what we are drinking. I do not have a drink with me right now, but I can speak to a drink that was enjoyed recently. So I've got to talk about Lindemann's Grand Bois.

Grand Bois is actually a fantastic beverage. A raspberry lambic beer that I've enjoyed for a long, long time. My wife actually really loves it and it's one of those that's like, it's rich, sweet.

The Frambois is the, is the raspberry version. Lindemann's has a bunch of other types of fruit flavored lambics that, that you can get. But I, and I've tried some of those and they're good.

But man, the, the Frambois is hard to beat. It's like, that's the one. They also have peach, lambic, a lush strawberry. They have a cherry which is really good. Apple and black currant.

Current, current. But it's the raspberry is like there, it's the one there that they are known for the most.

I would, I would argue the good folks at Lindemann's actually sent over. They had a gift set that was a bottle of the Raspberry, the, the frambois with a glass that was. Yeah, Lindemann's glass.

I feel like this is a good drink that it's, it's easy to drink. It's not. I mean, it's a 2.5 ABV, so it's not like you're not, you know, power slamming a framois to go out and hit the bars or whatever.

Jody: 00:21:44

Okay. Yeah.

Bruce: 00:21:45

But it is a, it is one that you drink and really enjoy. I highly recommend it. You can find it a lot of places.

I know that Merchant Du Vin, that's Merchant D U V I n dot com sells it and you can pick it up there and try any of their others. It's not like overly sweet. It's not too sweet or too fruity. It's like they, they got it just right. And I mean, if you look at the bottle.

a while. It says established: 1822

It says it's a wild fermented wheat ale with raspberries added to balance tart lambic complexity. Deep purple red color with pink head and magnificent aroma. It does smell good. It tastes good.

It's basically like if you were, I would say, especially if you're not a beer drinker on a regular basis, if that's not something that you would opt for, if you see this around, definitely give it a try. It is not your typical beer.

Jody: 00:22:49

Nice.

Bruce: 00:22:49

Yeah, yeah. Thanks to the folks at, at Lindemann's.

Jody: 00:22:53

My most recent beer because I'm also not drinking this morning after, well, afternoon I guess. It's called Big Doinks from Fair State Brewing in Minneap, Annapolis. Actually it says it's the stickiest Dankest IPA we could come up with.

And I will definitely agree it was quite potent, bracingly aromatic and actually bitter. Doinks is brewed exclusively with a hand selected lot of Columbus.

We sought out the good dank, fruity and citrus notes and left everything else behind. It's definitely danky and bitter.

I will say that I don't know how many of those I could really drink I had because I felt, I felt like it was a bigger can. I don't remember how many ounces it was, but maybe it was a regular one. But it was, it was, it was good. I had it down.

There's a corner wine shop that has beer and stuff that I go to called Taste Food and Wine here in Chicago in Jarvis Square. If you're in the area, definitely check it out. But yeah, Big Doinks from Fair State Brewing. Funny name. I was like, what is, what is this?

Bruce: 00:24:04

Yeah, well, this is good because we've got beers that kind of COVID the spectrum you know, we've got the. The Frambois that's kind of the, you know, on the. On the. The sweeter and lower abv. And then big doinks, which is not playing around.

Jody: 00:24:20

So it was not that switcher.

He gave it to me because he knows that I'm have been in the Pacific Northwest where there's a lot of danky beers, and I don't know that there's not a lot of people that drink that in the Midwest here as much, I guess so.

Bruce: 00:24:36

Well, there we go. We've got our drinks in. We've told you about Chairs. We've told you about Imprint and why you should check that out.

I've got another story, but I'm gonna save it because there's still another part of this story that's kind of ongoing.

Jody: 00:24:51

So I'm looking forward to that. Next time then.

Bruce: 00:24:54

Yeah, you can check out all of our beers on our untapped beer list. We might have a. An updated version of our beer list in the near future, so keep an eye out for that.

That'll make it a little easier for you to peruse.

Jody: 00:25:12

Well, thanks, Bruce.

Bruce: 00:25:13

Thanks, Jody. It's good. Good to be back and good to chat again.

Jody: 00:25:17

And I think.

Bruce: 00:25:17

I think we'll be back next week with even more fun.

Jody: 00:25:21

All right, we'll talk to you later.

Bruce: 00:25:23

All right, bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to Heavy Conversation. Be sure to like and subscribe on itunes or wherever you get your podcast.

Jody: 00:25:35

Podcast. Podcast.