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OK, is this thing on?

:: taps mouse several times, mutters "oops," closes Minesweeper window ::

Check! One, two, check!

All righty, then. In three, two ...

Welcome to The Lex Files, the News & Record's second staff-written blog (the first, SportsExtra, is here). I'm Lex Alexander, and I've been a writer and editor for the N&R for a little over 17 years. Currently, I supervise the enterprise/investigative reporting team, in addition to which I'm overseeing some of the political and education writers temporarily while some other editors are on special assignments or cross-training or whatnot. Want something investigated? Get in touch.

When Editor John Robinson gave me the OK to start this blog, I asked the N&R's brand manager what I should say in my first post. She gave me a funny look and said, "Tell 'em who you are. Tell 'em what you're doing. And tell 'em how they can help."

Easy enough, I guess.

I'll spare you the resume, but in the context of this blog, the key thing you need to know about my professional background is that for an English major and a content (the noun, not the adjective) guy, I've got an unhealthy interest in computers. I pushed the N&R to add database analysis to its reporting mix back in the winter of 1990-91, and I led the team of reporters and editors who launched the paper's first Web site, Triad Online, back in late 1994. At the time, we were one of the first 30 or so newspaper Web sites in the country. I also was, so far as I know, the first N&R news staffer to launch a personal blog.

I started blogging in the fall of 1997, although I didn't know that's what it was called, as I kept an online journal of what was going while my wife was pregnant with our first child. This was mainly for the benefit of friends and relatives, of course. I got serious about blogging in April 2002, when I launched Blog on the Run, which I continue to this day.

I encouraged the Powers That Be here at the N&R to get us involved in blogging for a number of reasons, primarily because of the possibilities I saw for the medium to enhance the relationship between the paper and the community. That said, I don't have any grand master plan for The Lex Files. (I didn't have any ground master plan for database analysis or building a Web site either; I figured the important thing was to start doing it as fast and cheaply as possible, first, and then figure out later where we were going with it. That approach has worked OK so far.) What I have is the capacity to blog, without being edited, from home or office, on almost any subject I choose, subject to a few facts and ground rules: