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In brief:

This is me, Old Lloyd. I'm 76 years young. I'm tall 6 feet 5 inches tall, weigh 230 pounds, have light blue eyes, and, as you can see, bald.

I was born and raised in Kansas. I'm a retired electrical engineer.

In pursuit of my career, I've lived in Titusville, Florida, near Los Angeles, California; Huntsville, Alabama; St Louis, Missouri; Rockville, Maryland and the last 5 years in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

Before I retired I was fortunate to have a steady job continuously since the age of 12. For 48 years I worked for someone else. Now I'm my own boss. (I've had worse).

Pat, my dear wife of 53 years, died in February of 2008. I still miss her and think of her daily. Since then I've lived alone.

Where I've worked and what I did:

I worked in the "Space Race" at Cape Canaveral, Florida during the early years of 1958-1959. Most of the missile launches in those early days were "spectacular" failures. We lived on Titusville Beach about 4 miles from the north gate.

Our kids got used to hearing the loud, low rumbles of the missiles being launched and would sometimes run outside straight from the bathtub to watch the fireworks (feeding time for the mosquitoes).

I stayed in the defense industry until 1969 and worked mostly in small to medium sized R&D companies. I had so many security clearances I stopped counting. I even had one that was so secret I wasn't even told who the client was (but I had a pretty good idea).

From 1969 to 1992 I worked for the US Postal Service in applied research. With all my previous private sector experience I could never accept the "government way" of doing business. That, and the internal politics were the only bad things about my government experience. Many of my efforts were also "spectacular" failures but some of them were remarkable successes.

In 1992 they made me an offer to leave that I couldn't refuse (a generous retirement bonus offer) so I accepted.

Family matters (it really does matter to me!):

I have 6 adult children and 13 grand children. All live within 50 miles.

Why I am a Republican (I wasn't always one):

The Republicans have a very difficult job. The Democrats have many "natural" constituents.

• government workers

• people who get more from government than they contribute to government

• people involved in welfare..."givers" and "receivers"

• public school teachers and administrators

I am hard pressed to find any "natural" Republican constituency. Perhaps, because the appeal to the Democratic constituents are closer to each individual, more immediate, and more personal.

The reasons I'm a Republican are:

• I believe in the US Constitution. The federal government is doing things that, in my opinion, are in contradiction to the 10th amendment. ("Amendment X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.") Redistribution of wealth is unconstitutional. Federal involvement in public schools, health, and many other areas are in violation of the 10th amendment.

• I believe in individual liberties. Big government nibbles away at those liberties.

• I believe that people who violate our laws should be tried quickly. If found guilty they should be jailed, treated humanely but not lavishly. No TV's, pool tables, body building equipment, etc. Jail should not be a place for fun.

• I believe that government should not be involved with religion. Freedom "of" not freedom "from" religion is the correct way to look at it. As stated in the 1st amendment of the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;...." The founding fathers didn't want the congress to establish a national religion (like Episcopalian).

• I believe the government that governs best is the one closest to the people.

• I believe in individual rights not group rights.

• I am for equal rights for everyone consistent with the constitution.

• I am concerned that if and when 51% of the electorate get more from government than they give, the country will be in mortal jeopardy.

I wasn't always a Republican. What converted me was the statement by George McGovern when he said he would crawl to Hanoi on his hands and knees if that would bring peace to Vietnam. Prior to that I was a Democrat but wasn't interested in politics.

My real nickname is Bob and I knew that it was a much to common name for the Internet. I originally chose the name "lloyd" because I thought no one would use that nick ...especially someone actually named Lloyd. I was wrong.

There are a lot of weird "Lloyds" out there in cyberspace. I got the idea of putting "old" in front again thinking that no one would admit to being old. That proved to be a very serviceable nick until recently.

Someone claiming to be a real old lloyd wrote to me. When I told him how I selected the name "lloyd" he got upset with me and wrote me a nasty e-mail. I guess "Lloyds" have no sense of humor.