I met Jason Pye in the Summer of 2005 while attending a Constitution seminar given by 2004 Libertarian Party (LP) candidate Michael Badnarik. He was the Chair of the Henry Co. LP while I was the Chair of the East Metro Atlanta LP just next door in Newton Co. We really hit it off and had a lot in common (although not so much with music).
It was shortly thereafter when I told Jason I was in the process of starting up a blog, mainly to be a vehicle for the fledgling, up-start LP affiliate we had just formed in Covington a couple of months prior. In fact, that is the very blog you're reading right now (although I disassociated the blog from the affiliate years ago). He liked the idea and said he might do the same. I think originally he just had a Henry LP Blog, or something similar, but before long, a new blog was rolled out, simply entitled, Jasonpye.com.
I was an avid reader right from the beginning. At that time, the hits were pretty scarce, I think, but the Pyeman kept hammering away. He was actually quite prolific with his postings and before long he really had things rolling--lots of good, quality posts; a growing readership; and a nice following of knowledgeable commentors that led to a lot of quality debate.For years, www.jasonpye.com was an everyday stop for me.
In particular, I think of the 2006 Georgia election season and the 2007/2008 POTUS primary season and campaign as highlights of the blog. In the Fall of '06, Jason was pulling double duty as he was Chair of the Georgia LP and was doing his blogging. In 2008 he was pulling triple duty as he was operating his blog, working on the campaign for Bob Barr 2008, and getting involved with another blog, United Liberty (UL). Of course, during all of this, he was still working a full-time job in addition to working on some local campaigns here and there as well. Ultimately, it was UL that took more and more of Jason's time and involvement as he was the Editor-in-Chief and was responsible for most of its content.
I had started writing a print column in 2009 and by 2010 had started up another blog to house those columns with additional content, but I started longing to do some political stuff again as the East Metro blog had been on hiatus for several years. Early in 2011, when Jason asked if I'd like to be a contributor for his page, I jumped at the opportunity to be able to write for the blog that I was such a fan of. I did a few posts, though not nearly as many as I'd have liked, but before long, I fell into a lot of the time constraints as Jason did, including spending more time writing at UL. Plus, it's not like many of us are doing this full time. We have jobs, responsibilities and other things going on.
As 2012 wore on, the posting at Jason's eponymous blog started to get slower and slower. Although out of sheer habit, I was still hitting the site at least a time or two a week just to see if anything new was up. So it wasn't really a huge surprise when I saw that Jason wouldn't be posting there anymore. But still--I had this keen sense of sadness when I heard the news. I immediately thought back to the many memories from it over the years. Blogs like Jason's become more than just a basic visit on the web. They become parts of our lives.
As I understand it, Jason will keep the site up as basically a resume page for his writing with links to his other projects, Twitter feed, etc. And we'll still be able to read Jason's stuff at Peach Pundit in addition to UL.
So...farewell to an old friend. Goodbye JasonPye.com. Seven years--that's a damn good run!
