I've ran through several examples over the web, and found that every single time I need something from the DB, I should write the following code:

try
{
  // Step 1: Load the JDBC driver. 
  Class.forName("mysql_driver_name"); 
  // Step 2: Establish the connection to the database. 
  String url = "jdbc:string_to_mysql_server"; 
  Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(url,"user1","password");

  // fetch from the DB ...

}
catch (Exception e)
{
  System.err.println("Got an exception! "); 
  System.err.println(e.getMessage()); 
}

It's very annoying to put up this code every time I want something from the DB, so the question is - is there a way to only once connect entirely all my app to the DB somehow at the very start point, avoiding copy-pasting mentioned code, and then be able to do everything I want with DB?

I've quickly looked through NetBeans's Project menu, but didn't find any clue on how to configurate a persistent connection to a selected DB.

If it's important, i'm writing a purely desktop app, i.e. using Java EE. Also, it's worth mentioning that I'm a kinda beginner in Java.