We’re almost to the three-month mark since the lockdown started here in Pinellas. Pretty quickly all of the public beaches were closed, right in the midst of Spring Break season. For a county with so many of its economic drivers tied to tourism and beachgoers, that specific element of the lockdown was unprecedented, but given the unknown around the virus’s possible impacts, it was the right decision.
Earlier in May the county reopened the beaches, and naturally, the first weekend was mayhem. We’ve gone a few times throughout the month, and it’s certainly been busy, but not a ton busier than it’d be during any other May.
We’ve been to Pass-a-Grille, St Pete Beach, and Sunset Beach, each of them is moderately busy during normal time, but the biggest issue right now has been the artificial limiting of crowds by law enforcement, mostly by limiting permitted parking. The beaches themselves are crowded in pockets, but still far safer and more distanced than some parks and trails I’ve been to. There are officers keeping an eye on things at the beach walkways and helicopters patrolling up and down looking for anything overwhelmingly crowded. I’m glad they’ve been able to manage it without it getting out of hand. My anectodal feedback on the national news coverage of “OMG they’re reopening beaches” is that they’re overblowing it. It’s not near as bad as most of the b-roll beach footage would have you believe.
Overall it seems like the county’s done a good job in a tenuous situation. And for the most part residents have been respectful in mask-wearing and distance-keeping — a lot more than I would’ve predicted. Floridians aren’t well known for compliance and good behavior.
It’s looking like we’re completely lifting restrictions on beaches, playgrounds, and pools next week, as well. Hopefully with appropriate distancing behavior we can gradually get comfortable again with at least outdoor activities, while keeping an eye on the case count figures to be cautious.
We just got back this evening from a long weekend trip up to Jacksonville for medical follow-up and to visit with friends. It’s about a 4 hour drive from St. Pete, and I usually do a route that takes us up I-75 to around Ocala, then connect up to I-10 up US-301. Then the same route home in reverse.
The trip down 301 takes you through a half dozen tiny to small towns that are quintessential “Old Florida”1. On this drive down I thought I’d briefly document each of them with a photolog of sorts, for anyone unfamiliar with what rural Central Florida looks like.
In order from north to south as you connect between the interstates, you pass through:
Lawtey
Starke
Waldo
Orange Heights
Hawthorne
Citra
Lawtey is the first town you pass, it takes about 30 seconds to traverse from north to southGrannie's is a famous stop in Starke, one day we'll stop for a full-service lunchThe Waldo Flea Market is a staple, we used to make trips there from Gainesville in collegeHawthorne is a frequent fuelling stop, for the Buick and the kidsWhen you pass Citra's Orange Shop, you know you're about 10 miles out from 75
As you can tell, these are some small places. It’s always a reality check to see how relatively sparsely populated so much of the state is, and how different it is living even a couple hours from a major city.
Interesting data here in Okta’s annual report. It’s clear that the way customer’s buy SaaS is very different than the “single-vendor” purchasing preferences from years past. SaaS allows businesses to buy and integrate the best-fit tools for any jobs:
We also looked at whether companies who invest in the Office 365 suite — the top app in our network — end up committing to a Microsoft-only environment, and the answer was clearly “no.” We found that 76% of Okta’s Office 365 customers have one or more apps that are duplicative of apps offered by Microsoft. Over 28% are chatting on Slack. Nearly 24% are connecting with their colleagues on Zoom. And over 28% of Okta’s Office 365 customers are “double bundling” themselves, subscribing to G Suite as well.
28% of customers have both Office 365 and G Suite. That’s a high number for an area that many consider zero-sum competition.
The Rays picked up Colin Poche in the Steven Souza, Jr. trade with the Diamondbacks last season. Sounds like he’s making some waves in the farm system:
The most unhittable arm in the minors is Colin Poche. Last year, he led the minor leagues in strikeout rate. This year, he again leads the minor leagues in strikeout rate, having increased his own strikeout rate by a dozen points despite going up against much stiffer competition. When Poche pitched in High-A last year, he struck out 37% of the hitters. In Double-A this year, he struck out 60% of the hitters. In Triple-A this year, he’s struck out 50% of the hitters. All year long, over 41.1 innings, he’s allowed just three runs. He’s allowed an OBP of .185, and he’s allowed a slugging percentage of .184. Colin Poche is turning in one of the most unbelievable performances you might ever see.
The St. Joseph’s Peninsula is special to our family, having gone camping, sailing, and fishing their growing up. The hurricane storm surge cut right through the island north of the boat launch area. I remember walking from the campground down to the marina to go fishing. Now you’d have to swim to get between them.
