Welcome to the club. I'm interested to hear how you like that travel mug. Speaking of travel mugs, we should've written a song called "Vacuum Sealed Travel Hug". "Baby let's keep it steamy…"

Just last month I started drinking coffee regularly, and after a few weeks of morning runs to EVP (a wonderful local coffee company) I decided that I needed to make the commitment to my newfound morning friend and invest in the same plan as you. That's right, Dr. Thunder is now relying on something other than his own caffeine. Tools of the trade:
http://www.gocontigo.com/catalog-product-detail;c...
http://www.amazon.com/Bodum-Young-Press-34-Ounce-...
Haven't found a coffee brand that i swear by, but eventually i'll settle on something.

You may also want to look into chemex (google it!). It's clean, old-fashioned, and produces an amazing cup of coffee.

Also, on the topic of grinders, a burr grinder is nice but expensive. If I was a betting man, I'd bet that you won't be able to tell the difference between the coffee produced from a burr grinder and that of a much cheaper blade grinder. I will say, however, that grinding your own coffee (regardless of the grinder) just before you brew it is the single most important thing you can do to improve the quality.

… Caribou Coffee, whose website likes to give the impression it is an American company, but nothing can be further from the truth. Fine-print on Caribou's website states "Our majority shareholder since 2000 is an affiliate of Arcapita Bank B.S.C.©," but what they fail to mention is that Arcapita was formerly known as the First Islamic bank of Bahrain which at one point owned about 90% of the company and was renamed to hide the fact that the company adheres to the same Islamic Sharia laws which prescribes discrimination against Jews, Christians and women. Boycott Watch has also previously written how Caribou has ties to terrorism.

http://www.boycottwatch.org/misc/starbucks8.htm