JasonBayer.com

Here’s the quick low-down… I was born October 31, 1970 in a small town in Western PA about 70 miles north of Pittsburgh called Hermitage. I spent the first 18 years of my life here and had a lot of good times and good friends. My passions during those years were running, basketball, baseball and video games. I actually started running when I was 7 years old in support of my dad quitting smoking and I was hooked until I reached 10 or 11 when other interests took over. Back in the day, I loved shooting hoops with my boys in the neighborhood on the “home-made” family hoop and playing Little League baseball… especially on our local “All-Star” teams that were pretty damn good but fell short of making it to the Little League World Series. One other notable event during these times… the Pittsburgh Steelers had won their 4th Super Bowl in 1979, so I started bleeding Black & Gold by the time I was 9 years old. GO STEELERS!!!

My high school years were also good times. I attended Hickory High School from 1985-1989 and was active in cross country, varsity basketball, choir and was the Vice-president of my class. My most memorable achievements of high school included finishing Top 10 in my class academically, 17th in the State in Cross Country my senior year 1988, Mercer County League Champions in Basketball 1989, and District Champs & 10th in the State (Team) in Cross Country 1986.

In 1989, I left the nest and headed off to college to attended the University of Pittsburgh. I started out in the computer science program but quickly found out that although I had an affinity to working with computers, I was in no way programmed to be a programmer. I switch into Communications which proved to be a good fit for me at the time. Unfortunately, web design and interactive media were in there infancy at the time and there were no real courses offered in New Media. I ended up graduating in 1992 with a major in Communications and a minor in English, a full year ahead of schedule thanks to summer classes and a few credits that I garnered in high school. Some of my favorite memories of my time at Pitt include Pitt basketball and football games, Sundays watching Steelers games & listening to Myron Cope, hangin’ out at Zelda’s, roadtrips with the boys (you know who you are), golf at Schenley Park, working at the computer lab in D.L. Lawrence Library, Mentoring freshmen in the summers, intramural basketball at Pitt Field House and softball at Pitt Stadium, etc, etc.

After graduation from college in summer of ‘92, the next stop on my journey brought me to Tucson, AZ. A two-week vacation to my mom’s cousin Bill Magnotto’s house turned into a full time job and two years of fun in the western sun. I worked at a counseling agency for kids called Golden Dawn Counseling and assisted them with their computer network and database administration. There were a lot of fanstastic people that I worked with and made friends with in my time in Tucson, but my partner in crime during my stint in Tucson was my good friend Carlos. While in AZ, I really developed a love for the West, hiking the mountains, enjoying nature and taking trips to places like Sedona, Lake Havasu, San Diego, Las Vegas, Mexico (Nogales and Puerto Penasco) and the Grand Canyon. I had so many good times in such a short time it’s really hard believe. Some of my favorite memories include sunsets at Gate’s Pass, hiking Sabino Canyon, tubing down the Salt River with the crew from Golden Dawn, Thursday nights at Pacific Beach Club, Sunday mornings at Famous Sam’s watching the Steelers, Lake Havasu on Memorial Day, New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas, Rocky Point and the list can go on and on… but like they say, All good things must come to an end.

To be continued…