I hit the big time with my rock 'n roll band

It's official!

The department proposed; the Deanery approved; the Ministry of Manpower accepted; the Minister Mentor allowed it; and now, with a trip down to the Ministry of Manpower offices that I could spin out to a daylong excursion I've got my new work permit and a one-year contract extension. So things are looking quite good, thank you.

The Ministry of Manpower office, which has moved twice since I was last there, looks superficially like the set for any modest dystopia's Bureaucratic Nightmare scene, with an endless array of seats leading up to few counters, half of them attended. This is deceptive. Abundant natural sunlight makes it about as cheerful as could be. Specific queue tickets taken as one enters the building, with estimates of which counter to use, and tote board LEDs at the counters make the wait reasonably short and estimable.

Submitting was maybe a ten-minute wait. They took my forms, old permit, and passport, and asked that I return ``after 1:50''. I got in at 2:00 and about ten minutes later paid my fee and got my paperwork. Singapore's green cards, in the charmingly natural way they do things here, are credit-card sized laminated sheets which are green.

Best of all, I've got another year before I run out of ``odd thing I saw today'' journal entries.

Trivia: The ``Baltimore Cookstove'' was invented by William T James of Lansingburgh, New York, and made and sold in Troy. Source: Troy: A Collar City History, Don Rittner.

Currently Reading: Time's Pendulum: The Quest to Capture Time -- From Sundials to Atomic Clocks, Jo Ellen Barnett.