I bought my first car in 2000, a brand-new blue Volkswagen Beetle. To this day, it’s still probably my favorite car that I’ve ever owned. Back then, buying a car was an exciting experience. It was far and away the most expensive purchase I had made at that point in my life and remained that way for many years.

Today you might notice a small change on the front of your newspaper that has a big meaning for us. When Sandpaper Publishing purchased the Crestview News Bulletin and Santa Rosa’s Press Gazette from the previous owners and took over the publications at the beginning of last year, the two papers were in bad shape.

There’s something that has bothered me about the way Gov. Ron DeSantis does business since he took office in early 2019 and it has nothing to do with his politics. I’ve been covering the news in Northwest Florida for close to 20 years now at different publications.

It’s hard to believe I’ve been back overseeing the Crestview News Bulletin and Santa Rosa’s Press Gazette for more than two months now. There have been some minor hiccups along the way, more on that later, but overall the job has gone better than I could have hoped.

In a lot of ways, I haven’t minded getting older. Despite a couple of back surgeries (in fact, I am writing this column on the 10th anniversary of my first), I am a rather healthy guy in my mid-40s.

In the 20-plus years I have been a journalist, I have covered hundreds of events, written thousands of stories. However, the story that had probably the biggest impact on my life wasn’t even a story that I wrote. In October 2016, I was the editor of two different weekly newspapers, one that sadly isn’t around any longer and the other is not the paper that it used to be because of budget cuts, which is just as sad. That was when we found out that Alaqua Animal Refuge had rescued dozens of Great Danes.

It still surprises me that one of the biggest stories of last year in Florida was Gov. Ron DeSantis vs. Disney and that DeSantis not only won, but he crushed them. Earlier this month, we got our first look at what the changes to the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the special district created in 1967 and signed into law by then Gov. Claude Kirk Jr.

It’s hard for me to believe, but I have lived in Northwest Florida for more than 20 years now. I moved down here from Indiana back in November 2002. At the time, my best friend and his girlfriend, now his wife, moved to Okaloosa Island to take jobs at some local newspapers.

I’m not usually one for big New Year’s resolutions. They can be a hassle to keep up with and follow. Although they’re designed to motivate you to make positive changes in your life, they can end up making you feel worse if you don’t stick with them.

We live in a strange time in American history. Despite all the advances we’ve made medically, scientifically and technologically, we seem more divided as a nation than we have in a long time.