OK, I have officially given up on visitor number 40, 444! So, visitor number 41,000 will win. It should happen today (Wednesday 12 April 2006) sometime, so if you are reading this, who knows, you may be the winner!

Congratulations!

Today (Sunday 9 April 2006) at 6:17 pm Edmonton time, my 40,444th visitor visited Codex Blogspot. The reader was from Glendale, Arizona. If you think it was you, then email me at codex [at] biblical-studies [dot] com and let me know your IPS and your computer and monitor and we’ll discuss your book prize!

One year ago today at 3:38 pm I published my first blog post. I’m not sure why I started a blog. One of my former students and friend Ken Ristau had mentioned his blog and I had looked at it on occasion, but it was more of an impulsive move that led me to create Codex Blogspot a year ago today.

In the year I have made some 335 posts (not quite once a day) on subjects ranging from Dead Sea Scrolls to ancient toilets, Jesus junk to inscriptions, Hebrew language to Hebrew tattoos. Since 7 July 1005 (when I added a site meter), I have had more than 40,000 visitors; my average for the last six months is around 200 visitors per day.

I have to say that I have very much enjoyed the blogging experience. I have enjoyed the camaraderie between bloggers and the relationships I have developed with others.

In honour of my blogiversary, I think I will put together a “Best of Codex” post to highlight what I think some of my best posts have been. So stay tuned.

I look forward to see what the next year will bring.

Thank you for taking the time to visit!

D’OH! I am so sorry!

OK, let me explain. My wife left yesterday to go to Indonesia for business (she works in international adoptions), so I am single-parenting it for a week. As it turns out, I didn’t have a chance to check my blog statistics yesterday, and guess what? I missed identifying who my 40,000th visitor was!

Today when I checked I was already at 40,200+ and my basic Site Meter account only provides details for the last 100 visitors. I even upgraded to a pay Site Meter account thinking that I may be able to gain access to past visitors — but unless I am missing something, it can’t be done.

What this all means is that I am not able to award a free book to my 40, 000th visitor. I am very sorry. So, instead, I will award the 40,444th visitor. As I write this the visit count is 40,219. That means that by Monday there will be a winner, so stay tuned.

Again, apologies to (un)lucky number 40,000!

I apologize that I didn’t get around to announcing this earlier (I’m not sure what I was thinking when I said I would announce the winner on my actual birthday! I ended up being a bit busy!), but I have picked a winner in my “Tell-A-Friend about Codex” Contest.

The way the contest worked is that all you needed to do is either email a friend about Codex: Biblical Studies Blogspot and tell them to visit or post a similar note on your blog, and then let me know about it by carbon copying me the email. The contest closed on my birthday (April 1st). To pick the winner, I wrote down all the submissions on a piece of paper and picked one out of a hat (actually it was a tupperware bowl). Well, enough with the preliminaries… the winner is…

Scott Bailey

As it turns out, Scott, is a student at Taylor University College just entering his second year of studies. He is a bright student with all the makings of a good biblical scholar, so I am delighted to award him a book in the area of biblical studies or Hebrew language.

Now, just in case some skeptical souls in the blogosphere think the fix was in (especially considering the shadow of doubt on my integrity lingering as a backlash to my perfectly excecuted April Fool’s Day joke! :-)), let me assure you that the draw was done above board. Scott had the advantage of having more than one entry because he emailed (spammed?) quite a few people about the contest. Either way, it saves me shipping charges, so I am happy!

40,000th Visitor Contest

While one contest is now over, don’t forget about my 40,000th Visitor Contest. As I have done in the past with my 10,000th visitor (see here), whoever happens to be my 40,000th visitor will also be a winner! There is not much you can do but visit here often and perhaps even read something! Once I have hit the 40,000 mark, I will blog the time and location of the lucky visitor and then they can contact me via email and verify with their IP address.

If I have done my math right, I shoud reach the 40,000 mark within the next few days. To be fair, I have changed my site meter icon so that no one knows how close lucky number 40,000 is.