Hit by nostalgia, loving new discoveries

One of our favorite Sunday morning pastimes of the 1990s was to buy the Sunday newspaper and head out to the nursery-turned-cafe on Lake Road. I love coffee and I always prefer independent coffee houses if I had a choice; something about the ambiance I like instead of the cookie cutter architecture of a chain.

I would order a cuppa joe, my wife a cup of Mexican Hot Chocolate, and spend hours reading the Sunday newspaper. Sometimes I would treat myself to a second cup or even third – the latter giving me a buzz and jitters – what fun times! The Sunday paper was thick and fat back then because of the advertisements and the coupons we clipped religiously.

Years ago, a supermarket chain started a rewards program where shoppers earn points for their grocery/everyday purchases. One chain, for example, gives discounts when filling up a car upon reaching a certain rewards threshold. It was like earning double discounts, once for groceries/everyday shopping using the national brand coupons we clipped on our Sundays pilgrimiges and subsequent discount at the pumps.

After many moons, we still earn reward points converting to gasoline discounts but for the past couple years, we also can use the supermarket chain's app for ordering grocery/everyday items and clipping "digital coupons." One supermarket chain has gone so deep into the digital world that they stopped printing advertisements on paper earlier this year. They only have digital ads on their website and through their app.

Oh, yeah, if you hate grocery shopping, you can just tap on the app icon, pick the things you want to buy while also applying digital coupons if available, checkout (i.e. pay with a credit or debit card), and pick up your groceries curbside without leaving your chariot.

That nursery-turned-cafe we used to visit every Sunday has evolved into a restaurant so I've been brewing my own coffee, using the French press method, for a while now. Up until the pandemic exploded in early 2020, I brewed my coffee in four minutes but I always wondered if I could make my brew better …

Have you heard of the social media platform "Reddit?" It has over 130 million active "subreddits" – think "communities" – so the chance of finding a community dedicated to a topic of your interest is high. One visits Reddit using a browser on any device connected to the internet or an app (smartphones/tablets).

I found a community, a subreddit aptly named "Coffee" (r/Coffee), where I gleaned information about author James Hoffmann who also has a YouTube channel with coffee-related videos. I adopted his nine-minute French press brewing method which basically made me slow down and smell the roses while brewing. His nine-minute brew was much better than my four-minute brew!

No particular reason but I just felt like writing how I felt today of the real and digital worlds we live in.