The calendar assures me that today, Aug. 11, represents the last of what is referred to in folklore as the “dog days” — that hottest part of summer attributed, in part, to the rising  of Sirius (the Dog Star) in the hours just before daybreak. Does this have any basis in reality? I have my doubts, but it’s a decent and often-told story.

(None of the above is relevant to anything in particular, but at least it’s slightly more interesting that just writing the word TEST in big, block letters. Which is to say there are parts of webmastering with which I am still trying to familiarize myself. Hopefully soon I’ll do better.)

January 13, 2016. It’s 11 a.m. in Carolina. Bright blue sky, about 36 gorgeous degrees outside. I’m about 2 1/2 cups of coffee in and have managed to run a brush through what’s left of my hair, so for now, we’re doing pretty good here on the west side.

The first thing I did this morning was take the van up to the garage for an oil change. The second thing was to come back and make coffee. The third thing was to start this website. In this life, you’ve got to prioritize. The garage is just up the street and the coffee part of it’s old hat by now, but I’m just easing into this whole building-a-website deal. Bear with me and I guarantee that before too long, I’ll have a few interesting things to say.

A few, anyway. I figure I can promise that much, even if I’m not vain enough to believe you’ll be hanging off my every word, either rough-cut or shined-up. This site is merely meant to serve as an outpost out there in the virtual world — somewhere you can get to know me, see what I’m all about. If you’ve found your way here, it means you’re interested at least to that extent. So just give me a little while, perhaps another cup of coffee or two, and we can see about switching things into high gear.

That’s my introduction. Thanks for dropping in. We’ll talk some more in a little while.

R.J. Beatty

Hillsborough, N.C.