A Florida businessman jumping into politics on the federal stage? No, not Donald Trump. Manatee County homebuilder Carlos Beruff on Monday formally announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate. The Republican seeks to succeed U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. At a rally at the headquarters for Medallion Home, the business Beruff founded in 1984, the candidate stressed his roots as a child of Cuban immigrants and his experience in the private sector. Echoing the message of other executives-turned-candidates, he stressed the need for a Washington outsider to represent Florida. “The political class thinks now that they are somehow different than the rest of us,” he said. “It’s time to do something about it.”

Critical of the Obama administration, he called for an expansion of the military and a reduction in spending on domestic programs. He cited experience in cutting spending as a trustee at State College of Florida and member of the Southwest Florida Water Management District Governing Board, two places where he said “fiscal waste was immense” when he arrived. He specifically noted $25 million in savings on a library project at SCF and a $44 million reduction in water district spending during his time on those boards. Of course, he acknowledged controversy surrounding his tenure on those boards as well. “It took effort, and some people were not pleased with me,” he said.

Indeed, a battle between Beruff and former SCF President Lars Hafner led to the college administrator’s stepping down in 2012, which led to two other trustees immediate resignations as well. The board, now lush with appointees of Gov. Rick Scott, more recently made the controversial decision to end tenure for SCF faculty, a move supported by Beruff. At SWFWMD, Beruff resigned shortly after a controversial approval of a request by Neal Communities for a seawall and for wetland development on 40 acres on Perico Island.

Now, Beruff enters a crowded Republican field for Senate, including U.S. Reps. Ron DeSantis and David Jolly, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera and Orlando businessman Todd Wilcox. On the Democratic side, U.S. Reps. Alan Grayson and Patrick Murphy are also running. The primary is scheduled for Aug. 30.

How Beruff fares, time will tell, but he brings a strong political alliance with Gov. Rick Scott, whom the Washington Post reports is being vetted by Donald Trump as a potential running mate for November. And at least at the Manatee County rally on Monday, Beruff was greeted by supportive faces. “I’m more nervous than I’ve been all day,” he said at the rally, which followed up speeches in Miami, Orlando and Jacksonville. “I was talking to strangers all day. But you guys know me. We just have to get people to understand your tax dollars mean something.”  

I found out the hard way that Apple’s AirPlay doesn’t always work as advertised. According to Apple: “With AirPlay, you can stream music, photos and videos to your AppleTV, or stream music to your AirPort Express or AirPlay-enabled speakers.” Of course, if you’re using AirPlay with any Apple suite of products, chances are the feature will work fine on your phone, computer or tablet. But what if you’re using Flickr video or Spotify? Have you noticed that sometimes your video won’t play? You get the boilerplate error message saying something went wrong.

After some serious time troubleshooting and a lot of trial and error, I stumbled upon a solution that allows your video to play. Be aware that since you are connecting devices, notifications from one of your connected devices may interrupt your movie viewing. What do I mean? When you’re trying to access Apple TV and you’re trying to play a Flickr video, the only way I found to make it work is to mirror your screen or connect using mirroring. This allows the video to play both on your device and through Apple TV. Don’t get me started on the inconvenience this causes. Using this option, you’re basically tying up two devices and using up your mobile phone or tablet batteries unless the device is plugged into an electrical outlet.

The moral of the story? If you have an Apple TV, try to download all your movies through iTunes when given the choice. Ultraviolet, Universal or any other service will want you to use their proprietary system and encryption technology. I do understand the monetary reasons for forcing consumers to do this, however the frustration and poor user experience it causes outweighs any potential branding benefit or residual income these large movie studios are hoping to gain.

I hope this little tidbit helps you streamline your technology options so you can enjoy your purchased content anywhere.

Pedro Pérez is a founding partner of Nuevo Advertising Group and an adjunct professor of Global Brand Strategies at Ringling College of Art and Design. For over 17 years Pedro has offered clients his knowledge and expertise. Pedro has always demonstrated a keen analytical sense combined with a good dose of common sense in crafting digital and online marketing strategies as part of an integrated marketing plan. 

Nuevo Advertising

University Park Country Club named Kathleen Bischoff to the newly created position of banquet manager. Bringing more than 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry, Bischoff will be responsible for managing the country club’s business, social, special occasion and wedding events. Bischoff returns to Sarasota from San Antonio, Texas, where she served as director of Banquets for La Cantera Hill Country Resort. Bischoff also held catering and banquet manager positions at Las Vegas' Stations Casino and the Renaissance Hotel and in Sarasota as banquet captain for Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and food and beverage manager at the Hyatt Regency. 

University Park Country Club

The grand opening of the Al & Sophia Katz Jewish Art Gallery has been scheduled for Sunday and will kick off with the Third Annual Jewish Public Art Show. The gallery will be located in the Cortez Commons shopping center on Cortez Road. Eleonora Lvov, an internationally-acclaimed Russian concert pianist, will perform at 2pm that day. 

Al & Sophia Katz Jewish Art Gallery

Ulta Beauty will open its doors to Sarasota beauty lovers on Friday. The new location at Pelican Plaza will feature 20,000 beauty products, 4,000 testers and more than 1,000 scents.  First 100 shoppers on Friday, Saturday and Sunday will win exclusive beauty give-a-ways. There will be free makeovers all weekend long.   

Ulta