Did Amazon Drop the Ball?

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Amazon Goes Air. AWS Goes Down.

Just weeks after proudly announcing plans to expand Prime Air, a futuristic drone delivery service that promises to drop your order on your doorstep faster than you can find your flip-flops, Amazon decided to balance things out by dropping the internet instead. Millions of people, thousands of businesses, and about half of civilization discovered what happens when the cloud forgets how to float.

As a recovering network engineer, I can tell you that what happened Monday is every techie’s recurring nightmare. A routine network change inside Amazon Web Services went sideways, taking out major sections of the internet. Social media apps crashed, airline check-ins froze, video games lagged, and banking systems blinked out like someone tripped over the world’s biggest power cord.

It was the perfect 2025 irony: the same company promising to deliver burritos by drone couldn’t deliver a functioning login page.

And yet, it’s not all doom and bandwidth. Monday was a friendly reminder that our digital lives are balanced on a single, very expensive, very overworked server farm in Virginia. When that farm goes down, so does Netflix, Disney+, your doorbell, your thermostat, and possibly your sanity.

Here in Brandon, the outage didn’t stop us. Folks kept it moving, grabbed lunch at their favorite local spots, and rediscovered the ancient art of talking to each other. Turns out you don’t need the cloud to discuss how wild it is that one man went from selling books in a garage to temporarily breaking the internet.

Things to do

🐝 WHAT’S BUZZING AROUND TOWN 🐝

Why Grandma Might Be Socializing More Than You

It turns out adult day care isn’t what your grandparents thought it was (though if your grandma ever rocked a game of balloon volleyball, maybe it was). The new wave of senior-day-care in Tampa Bay is less “nap time and mush” and more “ping-pong-bowling and karaoke.” One brand making moves is Generations Club, a nonprofit that just opened a full-service center in Tampa and plans to hit Brandon and Sun City Center by 2026.

Why this matters for Brandon: our region’s senior population is climbing fast. More folks are aging in place and looking for alternatives to “I’ll just sit on the couch and watch TV all day.” The care industry itself is expected to balloon from $16.5 billion in 2022 to nearly $25 billion by 2030, and everybody wants their slice.

Generations Club isn’t your run-of-the-mill bingo lounge. They’ve got themed activity rooms, salon/barber visits on-site, and even mobile dental and PT partners. Their pitch: seniors keep thriving, caretakers keep their sanity.

For Brandon and the surrounding communities, this means greater options, more specialized daytime care, and a local economy pick-up because more services = more jobs. Keep an eye out for their Brandon launch in 2026.

Say Hello to Debbie Baker of London Baker Law

“Home is where the heart is.”

For some people, “home” is just where they get their mail. For others, it’s where their spirit settles, even if it takes a few tries to find it. For this local attorney, home is still a complicated word. Tampa is where she always returns, but a part of her heart still belongs to the streets of New York and Boston, the places that first felt like hers. If Tampa ever gets a proper mass transit system, she says, maybe then it’ll feel like home.

But even without it, she’s built a life filled with connection. Friends who’ve become family, a community that’s become purpose, and a legal practice that lets her serve people during some of life’s hardest transitions.

After spending decades as a life coach helping people ask the right questions and make tough choices, she went to law school, literally taking a leap of faith. That faith took form in May 2015 as she graduated and was sworn into the Florida Bar that October. She opened her own practice the very same day. She’d spent 30 years working for herself before law school and wasn’t about to start clocking 80-hour weeks for someone else’s dream.

Her focus now? Estate planning and probate law, because for her, law is simply another form of service. Helping people make critical decisions about who they trust with their health, their finances, and their legacies. Preventing family chaos before it starts. Easing grief for those left behind.

She hears all the misconceptions. “I don’t have anything,” people say. Or, “It’s too expensive.” In truth, everyone has something worth protecting, even a small bank account or a single heirloom. And cost? That depends. What are you comparing it to?

What she loves most about her work is helping people find clarity and peace of mind. Sometimes that means helping a client realize that pursuing probate might do more emotional harm than good. Sometimes it means reminding families that they can plan ahead to avoid probate entirely because, as she says, “If you love your family, do the planning.”

When she’s not guiding clients, she’s walking, reading, having breakfast with friends, or coaching. She never quite stopped helping people think more deeply about life.

Her passion for service extends beyond her office. She supports Family Promise of Hillsborough, helping homeless and low-income families find stability; Powerstories Theatre of Tampa Bay, which gives women and girls a stage to tell their true stories; Metropolitan Ministries, which serves those at risk of homelessness; and Kindness Matters, a local initiative empowering those experiencing housing insecurity.

In a field often defined by paperwork and procedure, she brings something rare, warmth, empathy, and the belief that law can be deeply human. For her, it’s not about contracts and clauses, it’s about connection and care. And in that way, maybe Tampa, traffic and all, has finally become home.

Buzz Worthy

Homemakers of Hope

Home Makers of Hope is a faith-based nonprofit dedicated to turning houses into homes for families in need. They collect gently used furniture and household goods, then deliver and set everything up—beds made, curtains hung, kitchens stocked—for families referred through partner agencies.

Buzzing Bites

Your Restaurant Here

New dish, new buzz. Put your specials in front of 20,000+ local food lovers in Brandon, Valrico, Lithia, and FishHawk. Only 20 spots for the year. Restaurants, food trucks, even lemonade stands—get featured here. Reserve today: [email protected] 

The Buzz List

Coming Soon

Need a handyman? A dog trainer? Someone who can install a ceiling fan without turning your living room into a fireworks show?

We’re putting together the official Brandon Fix-It List — the most trusted local pros for everything from backyard upgrades to “why is this light switch buzzing?”

Want in? Email us at: [email protected]

Football

The Battle of the Brandon Quarterbacks starts next week. Keep an eye out for our poll to pick your favorite high school QB. The winner will be featured in an upcoming newsletter and get a gift card to a local favorite restaurant. Vote early, brag later.

Brandon vs Middleton, Friday 10/24 @7:30 PM - Away

Bloomingdale vs Riverview, Friday 10/24 @7:30 PM - Home

Durant vs Bartow, Friday 10/24 @7:30 PM - Home

Newsome vs Plant City, Friday 10/24 @7:30 PM - Away

A Final Note

The Brandon Buzz, more than news, it’s a lifestyle.

Until next time,

Buzzing Local