Mar 1997

Wow! What an interesting month in the annals of my email top ten list. There hasn't been this much fun and excitement in many months! Lets see... where should I start??

Well, in February Rebecca, who had never before fallen below fourth place and who usually placed first despite her many protests that this contest was evil, decided to cease sending me email entirely as a protest. Her goal was to not send any mail to me at all in the month of March. She succeeded. A big fat zero.

This left a huge vacuum at the top of the list. It had been a long time since the contest was so wide open to competition. And indeed, for the first half of the month April, Chad, Greg and Ron were very close. April was ahead for most of that time, with Chad close on her heals, and Greg and Ron fighting for third. Then around the 16th Greg lost momentum and fell away. But Ron had a sudden email spurt and on the 17th, 18th and 19th the three of them were in a dead heat.

But then... but then... Chad decided he HAD to win this contest for March. Chad put on the afterburners. He sent me more and more email every day. Chad pulled ahead and never looked back, peaking at a frenzied pace when he sent me 227 messages on March 30th alone and one final spurt of 33 messages in the last ten minutes of the contest on the 31st.

When it was all over Chad had not only won this month's contest, but he had completely and totally crushed all opposition. Chad's total of 738 messages in March was more than five times as much email as his closest competition. And for that matter Chad's effort beat Ivan Bou and Kathy Wilson's previous record of 644 messages in a single month set back in February 1996. Congratulations Chad, you have achieved all your goals and more.

While all this was happening several other people switched jobs or were otherwise occupied allowing their email volume to drop enough so that they fell off the list. And Ron's old email address finally dropped off the list giving way to his new address. All in all including Ron and Rebecca, six of the addresses that made the list in February fell off the list in March. One of those spots was taken by Ron's new address, and one was taken by Al, who has been on the list before, but the remaining four were taken by people who have never made the list before. I can't remember if there has ever before been this much turnover in a single month.

In any case, welcome to Babrara, Dimitri, Shannon, and Rick who all made the list for the first time in March!

All in all an exciting month. Next month promises to be interesting as well. Rebecca has now ended her boycott and is sending email again. But had the cycle been broken? Will she even make the list again, let alone place highly? Or will Chad be the new king of the Top Ten? Or will one of the newcomers pull an upset? We shall see...

Linear Graph
Logarithmic Graph

Feb

Apr

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