Most of you anticipate the early days of spring by looking forward to days on the golf course, getting the bikes tuned up, pleasant walks in the par… or even the drudgery of cleaning winter’s debris from around the house. My idea of opening day may differ from yours. The opening in my days is envelopes. Once the Derby envelopes start arriving life changes for me. This year unreliable mail delivery has put me behind behind schedule. Entries are about equal with what they were last year at this time when we learned that the season would be delayed. Unreliable mail delivery has resulted in the number of entries received at about 40% of 2019 levels at this time.

I do enjoy operating our game and I am rewarded with 6.7% of every  entry fee. But things have changed in the last 30 years. After getting home from work around 5:00 there is time for a quick meal and shower before plopping down at the computer. I try to give it at least three hours a night but am finding that I don’t do as well under artificial light as I once did.  And on weekends I have a difficult time spending the ten hours a day that was possible in my 30s. Once upon a time I could key in 600 entries on a weekend day. Stamina, and my back, now make this tough to accomplish. But it will get done!

The time data below is for actual sheet entry only. It does not include other tasks like maintaining the the website and email list, tracking (lots of) Robin Rule Transactions, and generating bank deposits. All of this is not meant as a ‘grump’, just sharing.