Happy New Year!

[Ron]

May 2022 bring you great health and enough wealth in your pursuit of happiness!

[Ron]

double tap

[Bogie]

There was significantly less gunfire around me.
 
SIGNIFICANTLY.
 
I think that folks are hurting for cash/saving their ammo.

[HankB]

I heard MORE fireworks in my "no fireworks allowed" suburb this year than last - they started around 10:00 PM and continued to midnight, with the last big bang I heard around 1 AM. It's possible most of the celebratory fireworks were set off just outside city limits, nothing sounded very close. (But it was close enough to set the neighbor's dogs to barking.)

From the sound I suspect there was a little gunfire mixed in, but there were also a few pretty loud explosions in the middle distance - either BIG fireworks or something else.

[RocketMan]

Happy New Year everyone!  Here's to a better year than the last!  (raises glass)

Lot's of illegal fireworks this year.  Folk bring them in from South Carolina where you can buy most anything you want that goes bang.  Which is as it should be in my opinion.
Some idiots in the area were doing mag dumps with their handguns, however.  Hopefully they were shooting into the ground, but I doubt that was the case.

[Devonai]

A party across the road spilled out into the street around 10:30pm, and there was a sudden confluence of fireworks, loud music, and guys doing burnouts.  Very unusual for my neighborhood (or at least, all three at once).  I held off on calling the cops because our dispatchers can be dicks about noise complaints ("It's NYE, what do you expect," etc), and SWMBO and I tried to go to bed anyway.  Fortunately either they all went back inside, or somebody else called the cops, because there was nothing after 11:00pm.  Thank goodness.

As far as the new year, I'm happy that on Dec 19th I was promoted from GS-07 to GS-09, and on Sunday I'll be getting the 2.1% COLA boost.  Just like that I'm earning an extra $8,000/year.  It would have been nice to happen sooner (I've been at the full performance level since April), but it happened.

[Ben]

As far as the new year, I'm happy that on Dec 19th I was promoted from GS-07 to GS-09, and on Sunday I'll be getting the 2.1% COLA boost.  Just like that I'm earning an extra $8,000/year.  It would have been nice to happen sooner (I've been at the full performance level since April), but it happened.

I'm jazzed you got the promotion, but to immediately start an New Years thread veer, what's the deal with GS-8s and GS-10s? I never saw or heard of one in my time, and everyone always promoted from 7 to 9 or 9 to 11 - you never saw a promotion to 8 or 10, yet everything else went 11,12,13,14,15. It was always a curiosity to me and I never got around to asking about it before I separated.

[Devonai]

I'm not entirely sure.  I started out as a GS-06 but quickly realized I was being asked to perform at the GS-07 level.  I never asked for a desk audit because my career field in active duty assists with PCS and HHG moves, and being on an Air Guard base we don't do any of that except in the extremely rare cases where somebody qualifies based on a job offer.  At which time we refer them to Hanscom ARB and that's it.  So on paper, a desk audit would fail because despite my personal feelings about my performance level, there's a whole section of the career field I don't do.  However, in 2020 it was announced that my entire career field, nationwide, was being upgraded to GS-07.  Apparently a lot of us had been doing some vocal complaining.

Vicariously, the only GS-08/10 I've ever seen were in finance.

[Brad Johnson]

A toast to all and fond wishes for health, wealth, and happiness.

Oh, and you Northerners better damned well eat your black eyed peas today. Us Southern folk have been making up the difference for a while, but with the way 2021 played out it's time you started pulling your own weight!

Brad

[HankB]

. . .
Lot's of illegal fireworks this year.  Folk bring them in from South Carolina where you can buy most anything you want that goes bang.  Which is as it should be in my opinion . . .

I grew up in Chicago where fireworks were illegal since my Dad was a kid.

Only a little shooting on New Year's Eve, but if you stood outside any 4th of July with a tape recorder, in a typical year it would sound like a battle scene from The Longest Day or any other war movie - except it would go on for hours unabated. Virtually everyone - myself included - had fireworks. A LOT of fireworks. There was even a fair amount going off in the week leading up to the 4th.

If Chicago cops confiscated fireworks from neighborhood kids - it was so they could bring them home to their own kids. I know this for a fact since one of my childhood chums' father was a Chicago cop. 

I was lucky that I had fireworks when I was still young enough to really enjoy them, but old enough not to be so careless that I got hurt. Now in TX I see firework stands all over the unincorporated areas surrounding Austin . . . and I don't really care any more. Age, I guess. Few injuries are reported locally, so I think most people are suitably careful.

[HeroHog]

Happy Nude Year!