Greetings!

I am Terry Dillard, TD for short. This site is paid for and maintained by me and me alone. I’m responsible for all of it (except for comments left by others!), and I intend to take good care of it. I will offer opinions (always strong), insights (hopefully thoughtful), and analysis (usually reasoned). I will, when the spirit moves me, go off on a total and complete rant. If you don’t like what I say, convince me I’m wrong, I love respectful dialog, even when it disagrees with what I’ve said. Be aware, though, of my separate Blog Policies.

I have a Master’s degree in Counseling, an expired Mensa card (I wanted to see if I qualified - I did), a too-loud mouth, a beautiful wife, and the gassiest dog I’ve owned in over 50 years of pets. Both ends. I swear, I didn’t know a dog could belch out loud!

I’m a conservative according to this definition, mainly because it’s the only political orientation that makes good sense (OK, makes sense to me). Liberals are completely whack-o, in my professional opinion, the only thing left to do is code them properly in the DSM-IV (I’m currently leaning toward Narcissistic Personality Disorder).

I am American by birth, and Southern by the Grace of God.

I’m a Jeep dude (even though I don’t own one at the moment), an amateur videographer, and relax to the music of Sonny James, Enya, Toby Keith, Sarah Evans, Chely Wright, Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, and Sonny James. Did I say Sonny James?

I’ve had my Technician’s license in amateur radio since August 2007. My call sign is KI4YZI (Kilo India 4 Yankee Zulu India). I have a Yaesu VX-7R H/T, and I’ll start studying for my General License as soon as I can afford the study materials. After that I’ll do everything I can to get a decent HF rig and the antenna to go with it, because I want to talk to folks in other countries. My main interest in ham radio lies in emergency and public service communications. I haven’t started the process of getting involved with that yet, but hopefully it won’t be much longer. When I’m on the air, I hang out on the SCARC Repeater at 146.980 (W4SHL) when I’m home or close by, or the BARC Repeater at 146.880 (W4CUE) when I’m at UAB or just starting home. Give me a call, I’d love to chat!

I’m a Christian, having been born a Baptist (my wife was born Methodist), and progressed through independent, full Gospel, and Charismatic. I guess that would make us Baptamethodent Gospematic. I believe that God has a marvelous sense of humor, contrary to the somber representations of God and His Son in art. How else would we explain Giraffes, Rhinos, Hippos, Puffer Fish, and the various simians and their antics? Seriously, I believe that God still moves in the lives of Believers; I believe in the laying on of hands to heal the sick, prophecy, words of knowledge, and tongues, both as a supernatural gift and as a prayer language. I believe that the only way to get to God is to go through His Son Jesus. I believe that individuals can still literally hear His voice — I’ve heard it. I believe in the Apostle’s Creed. I believe that Islam is at best a conflicted and at worst a false religion.

Through my training as a counselor, I know that to get someone, anyone, to understand you, you have to speak a language that they understand. I’ll try and do that on this web site, and I hope our government will do it to the terrorists and those who sponsor them, even if the communication isn’t always verbal. If the only thing that they can be made to understand is a thorough bombing campaign, then so be it. If you want my target list, it would consist of sites in Syria, Iran, and North Korea. If they lose civilians, I’m sorry, but not as sorry as I’d be to have myself and my fellow citizens suffer through another September 11.

I’m an ISTJ on the Myers-Briggs Personality Test (take a modified version here, don’t forget to click the link to read your type description after you score it). Some of the traits revealed by this test indicate:

• Basically, I’m Cliff Claven from the old TV show Cheers, but without all the BS. You see, ISTJs find it easy to hold a lot of trivial information in their minds. You do not want to play an ISTJ in Trivial Pursuit!
• Dependable is the word which best describes us, duty is the word we best understand.
• We have a distaste for and distrust of fanciness in speech, dress, or home. This would explain my informal writing style even though I have a Master’s Degree in Education, and a genius-level IQ.
• My prayer goes something like: “Lord, please help me to loosen up and not be so uptight starting this afternoon at 17 minutes and 23 seconds after 5 pm Central Standard Time.”

Finally, I believe that America is the greatest country that has ever been and will ever be. I believe that we can lose that greatness if we continue to allow:

• Liberal Secularism to destroy the Judeo-Christian ethic on which this country was founded, and
• Illegal immigration to change the Eurocentric culture of our country

I will do all that I can to reasonably make these arguments.

TD