If you hate grocery shopping, you should try this

Jimmer playing for gold this week; Joe Girard III is heading to Lithuania as a pro

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Change is difficult, but Covid surprisingly changed us in many ways that are beneficial.

While we no longer have to wear masks at the hospital and the doctor's office, those plastic barriers remain to protect health-care workers from being exposed to a parade of germ-carrying patients. It would be interesting to see if the number of sick days used by workers at Glens Falls Hospital and Hudson Headwaters has been reduced.

We all should adopt as a standard health-care practice to don masks and protect the doctors and nurses.

Maybe the most profound improvement is the adoption of "tele-health" visits for routine check-ups.

There is nothing worse than going to the doctor's office, sitting in the waiting room for 15 minutes - being exposed to all those germs - then being led into an examining room where you sit for another 15 minutes, see the doctor for five minutes and are told you are perfectly healthy.

If you've been to a professional sporting event, concert or even the theater these days, you can no longer pay with cash. Post-covid, cash has been outlawed. Everything is done digitally. In most cases, especially when people just tap their credit card, the line moves faster.

Amazon was already well on its way to making shopping more convenient when Covid struck. If you weren't using Amazon before covid, you probably are now. I just can't stand walking around a big-box store trying to find things. It's a more efficient to order it from a different state. Of course that is killing retail in our communities.

There are also the delivery services for take-out food that my son swears by.

But this week, I discovered something new and extraordinary. You can do your grocery shopping digitally.

I've been doing the shopping in our house for years. More and more I noticed supermarket employees walking up and down the aisles of the supermarket filling orders and doing other people's shopping.

It seemed kind of lazy to do that.

But this weekend, I decided to try the digital experience.

I expected it would be a long and arduous process going through all the selections, but I found the website to be intuitive and after a few minutes, I felt like I was walking the aisles from the produce department to the deli to the fish counter.

The reality is we are mostly creatures of habit when shopping, and I wondered if website shopping actually reduced impulse buys, although I had a couple - Hey, the lobster tails were just $6.99 each.

I went through each department on the website as if I was walking through the grocery store. What I actually found was that it was easier for me to find some items online than it is in the supermarket.

Where is horseradish anyway? I've been looking for it for two decades.

Where they hide the sauerkraut is mystery to me as well.

I always make a list when I go shopping. When I finally get to the last aisle, I review the list. There is always one item I forgot back in the first aisle and I have to go back.

It can be frustrating.

When I missed an item online - bacon bits for my salad - I just did a search and it immediately popped up.

Much easier.

I filled my online bucket in about a half-hour. It was noon on Friday and I scheduled delivery for between 4 and 5 p.m. that day.

Later that afternoon I got an email telling me two of my items had been substituted. If I didn't want them, I needed to send an email. If the substitutions were fine, I did nothing.

They were fine. I did nothing.

I included special directions for the delivery person because GPS takes people to the run address in my neighborhood and the driver showed up a little after 4 p.m.

She then helped me carry the groceries into the house.

I usually have to do it myself.

My delivery from the supermarket arrived quickly and was packed perfectly.

The delivery usually costs $10, but I was not charged anything because of some sort of first-time promotion. And I left a 20 percent tip.

I told my son about the experience - he has lived in a couple of big cities down south and has done the delivery route a few times -and he asked me if my time was worth $10 an hour.

It was a good point.

Plus, I didn't have to wait in line, or remember to bring my bags or bag my groceries.

The future is here.

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Jimmer's Olympics

If ever there was a Glens Falls athlete destined to be an Olympic athlete, it was Jimmer Fredette.

The NBA dream didn't quite work out for him - although he made a pretty big splash as a professional in China - but Fredette could be adding a career-topper this week as he represents the United States in 3X3 basketball.

The U.S. plays Tuesday through Friday this week, beginning Tuesday against Serbia at 4:30 p.m. The rest of the pool play schedule is as follows:

- U.S. vs. Poland, Wednesday, 4:35 p.m.

- U.S. vs. Lithuania, Thursday, 1:35 p.m.

- U.S. vs. France, Friday, 12:35 p.m.

- U.S. vs. Netherlands, Sunday, 1:05 p.m.

If you didn't get to see Jimmer play at Glens Falls High School nearly two decades ago, you might want to check out this story that ran on the NBC website:

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The Olympic games in Paris were kicked off with a hot air balloon lifting the torch above Paris.

Opening ceremonies

The French may have outdone every other opening ceremony at every other Olympics, although I still love the opening ceremonies at Winter Olympics in Albertville when they used an archer to shoot a flaming arrow to ignite the Olympic cauldron in 1992.

The idea to have the athletes float down the Seine on boats for the parade of nations was brilliant.

If you have never been the Paris, stop reading right now and reserve your airfare.

We went in 2011 with the purpose of visiting the beaches in Normandy and family, but our first stop was three days in Paris where we visited the Eiffel Tower, took the train to Versailles, saw the Mona Lisa at the Louvre and went to the top of the Arc de Triumphe and the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Our final night, we had a wonderful dinner near Notre Dame and then walked along the Seine until we could see the glittering Eiffel Tower in the distance. None of us wanted to leave.

I was reminded of that night during the opening ceremonies and so thankful I got to have that experience.

It will stand out for as long as I live.

Go to Paris.

Thanks to the opening ceremonies, I want to go back.

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NBA experience

After sitting out the first two games for the Toronto Raptors summer league team in Las Vegas, Glens Falls native Joe Girard III finally got into a couple of games.

During the Raptors 109-73 loss to the Miami Heat, Girard played 17 minutes and scored five points, but was just 1 for 6 on 3-point attempts. He also added 2 assists and 5 rebounds.

During the Raptors 100-89 loss to the San Antonio Spurs, Girard played 12 minutes and scored 4 points on 2 for 5 shooting. He also had a steal and an assist.

The Post-Star reported Saturday that Girard had signed to play professional basketball in Lithuania.

In case you haven't been there, Lithuania is northeast of Poland and not far from the Russian border.

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The Fountain that was at the five-way roundabout in 1900 has already been created for the Hometown Trolley Project. Help the cause and donate today.

Model train project

  The Upstate Model Railroaders, Inc., a community based non-profit organization dedicated to preserving local railroad history, is partnering with the Chapman Museum to create an interactive operating display for the museum that will replicate part of downtown Glens Falls circa 1900.

  This display will replicate in HO scale, as historically accurate as possible, the trolley line as it ran up Glen Street circa 1890. This single trolley line ran from Warren Street north to Warrensburg.

  The model will depict the west side buildings of Glen Street, include the original fountain at the south end, then continue north to the Civil War monument at South and Bay streets. The trolley will be operational by the push of a button and travel from one point to the other and automatically return.

  A fund-raising effort is under way and  the goal is to raise $2,000.00. All money raised will be used for infrastructure and equipment. The Upstate Model Railroaders will be donating some equipment along with its knowledge of railroads, our modeling talent and craftsmanship.

The Chapman Museum hopes to display the finished product during its holiday celebration in December.

To donate to the project, go to the Chapman Museum website and stipulate you want to donate to the Hometown Trolley Project.

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NFL and rugby

The number of rugby matches I have watched in my lifetime are minimal.

But I came away from the Gold-Medal game between France and Fiji Saturday - they play rugby in Fiji - not only entertained me but gave me an idea about solving the New York Giants running back problem.

France's Antoine DuPont, at 5-7, 187 pounds, is minuscule by NFL standards but he loomed large on the rugby pitch in France Saturday. He seemed to be the one player at the center of every key play for France as it posted a 28-7 win over Fiji to win the Gold Medal.

I think the Giants should sign him immediately.

Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.