OK, I know some bibliobloggers think contests, recognizing milestones, and other such stuff is cheesy. But I don’t care.
As this blog approaches its 100,000th visitor, I want to give away a book. So here’s the deal: if you are number 100,000 I will send you a free book (I’ll give you some options and you can choose).
I figure that number 100,000 should visit around the middle of next week.
Thanks for visiting and good luck!
I just noticed that by blog counter hit the 60,000 mark. I just want to say, “Thank you for visiting!” I added the counter on July 7th last year, so it has been just over one year. I am a bit humbled that 60,000 people have visited my blog (and that says nothing about my companion Codex website).
What is even more amazing is the number of visitors I get from all around the world. Case in point: the 60,000th visitor was from Minsk, Belarus. Privet Belarus! I sure hope it was worth the trip!
My average visits sit at about 230 per day, which means in the next year I may have 84,000 visitors. Gee, I guess I better start writing about more than ancient toilets and tattoos!
Thank you for visiting and making blogging an enjoyable and meaningful experience.
OK, OK, I know I said I wouldn’t have any more contests for a while. But I was grabbing some books from my office today and noticed that I had duplicate copies of a couple books. I also noticed that I hit the 50,000 visitor mark this evening. Then I combined those two insights and decided to give away a book to lucky number 50,000.
So here it goes. My 50,000th visitor was from Thornhill, Ontario, and is running a Macintosh computer with OSX. S/he visited my blog at 9:17:11 pm.
If you think you are the lucky visitor, then send me an email at codex [at] biblical-studies [dot] ca with some revealing information about yourself (like your ISP or IP address!) and you can pick one of the two books below and I’ll send send it to you for absolutely nothing! Here are the books:
Congratulations to the winner!
The revealing tell-all interveiw with this month’s “Biblioblog of the Month” (yours truly!!) has been uploaded at biblioblogs.com. It is a riveting exposé of one of the most influential inconsequential bibliobloggers ever to write a piece of html! I laughed, I cried, and in the end I wanted more. Here is the picture of myself I wanted to include with the interview:
Seriously, I would like to thank Brandon Wason and Jim West for the honour of being Biblioblog of the Month – and for maintaining biblioblogs.com. These are the sorts of things that will provide cohesion to the biblioblog community. Cheers!
Finally! I have a winner! My 41,000th visitor is none other than Dr. Jim K. Aitken, Teaching Fellow in Hebrew and Aramaic at University of Cambridge. He is a specialist in Second Temple Judaism, Septuagint, and Greek and Hebrew Lexicography. His doctorate was on Ben Sira and he has been involved in the “Greek Bible in the Graeco-Roman World� project and the Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database Project. Talk about an über-lexicographer! His personal web page is filled a lot of interesting stuff on lexicography, Septuagint, and more. I strongly encourage you to peruse his site!
I believe I met Jim at the Toronoto SBL meeting when I was with a common friend and fellow Septuaginalist Tim McLay.
In terms of a prize, Jim has requested a copy of the revised edition of Moisés Silva‘s Biblical Words and their Meanings (Revised & Expanded edition; Zondervan, 1995), and I am more than happy to fulfill that request! (I’m just glad that other Jim didn’t win — West would have wanted some esoteric — and expensive — book on some dead Swiss guy called Zwingli!)
Congratulations Jim! (So, when are you going to start your blog?)
Now perhaps we will have a winner… the 41,000 visitor to my blog is from Cambridge, England. The individual visited Codex at 9:51:25 am (my time), 4:51:25 pm (Cambridge time). If you think you are that person, please email me at codex [at] biblical-studies [dot] ca and provide me some information about your ISP, computer, and browser.
If I don’t hear anything in 24 hours, then the winner will be 41,001, etc., until I have a winner.
Then I can get back to some regular biblical studies blogging! (Actually the reason I haven’t blogged much in the last few days is that my wife is on the other side of the world and I am single parenting — as well as the typical end-of-semester grading push)
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!