And the winner is… Talmida from Edmonton, Alberta. As it turns out, my 10,000 visitor has been a regular reader of my blogspot. In her blog profile Talmida describes herself as “a liberal zen catholic studying Hebrew who suspects that the proof of God’s existence lies in quantum physics.” However, from chatting with her in the last week, she is no longer sure how liberal, how zen, or how catholic she is! And although she still thinks God is visible in quantum phyics, she is now positive that God can be found in Biblical Hebrew.

Talmida loves languages. She went to bilingual schools (French/English), picked up some Latin and a smattering of German in University and used to be able to write notes to her school friends in the runes from the title page of The Hobbit. What is quite amazing is that she taught herself biblical Hebrew! After a few months learning online, her husband bought her a Biblical Hebrew textbook, then she came across my Answer Key, which eventually lead her to my blog.

While she hopes to study Hebrew at university some day, it may be a while. Until then, she is teaching herself and blogs about it (and whatever else catches her interest) at The Lesser of Two Weevils.

Once again, I want to congratulate Talmida for being lucky number 10,000. And in order to encourage her study of Classical Hebrew, I am pleased to present to her a copy of Christo H. J. van der Merwe, Jackie A. Naudeé, and Jan H. Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar (Biblical Languages Series; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000). Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com

Congratulations! This morning (30 October 2005) at precisely 10:38:33 am (Edmonton time) I had my 10,000th visitor to my blog. As I previously mentioned, this person (perhaps one of my students?) has won a free biblical studies or Hebrew language book. I will provide some options and this lucky person will choose which one he or she wants.

As it turns out, the lucky winner is from Edmonton, is using a Windows computer, and is web browsing with Firefox. If this is you, please send me an email. In order to verify that it was you visiting my blog, I will ask you what service provider you are using and perhaps some other identifying features of your visit.

To be honest, I am somewhat relieved that lucky number 10,000 is from Edmonton since I won’t have to worry about shipping! Visitor 9,999 was from Birmingham, UK, while 10,001 was from Vancouver, British Columbia. Other recent visitors have been from Denmark, Germany, Hungary, and the United States.

Since the first of September when I had my 5000th visitor, I have had an average of 166 visits to my blog per day. That is up considerably from just under 100 visits per day for my first 5000 visitors (or at least my first 5000 from the day I added the site meter, July 7th).

I would like to thank everyone for visiting. And I am honoured that some people actually find what I blog interesting and/or informative — or perhaps something else!? I have enjoyed blogging for a variety of reasons. First and foremost I see this as an extension of my teaching. It also allows me to think out loud, so to speak. Blogging allows me to put to writing different ideas that I have based on reading and research in and around my courses. I have also enjoyed becoming part of the biblioblogging community. I just think that it is kind of neat to be able to interact with others around the globe.

Again, thanks for visiting! Come again and come often!

I hit the five thousand mark today with my site meter. Since July 7th (the day I added the site meter) there have been almost 100 visitors per day to my blog.

If you are a new visitor, welcome! If you are a repeat visitor, I’m honoured! Thank you for taking your time to browse my blog and my site. Thank you for your feedback and I hope that you continue to find my blog useful, fun, and informative.

I remember growing up and the McDonald’s would have on their signs, “Over 1 Million Served” or the like. Hmm… when did they stop doing that?

At any rate, I hit the one thousand mark today with my site meter, which I think is kind of neat. I know that is nothing compared to the visits that blogging luminaries like Mark Goodacre at NT Gateway Weblog (he is currently at 2,093,660!), Jim Davila at Paleojudaica (150,865), or Jim West at Biblical Theology Blogspot (87,868) receive, but I think it is not too bad — especially considering that I only added the site meter to my blog two weeks ago (OK, 15 days if you’re picky). If I keep that rate up for the next year I will be at 26,000! Hmm… I have a way to go I guess!

What I find the most fascinating is that people are visiting from all over the world with a variety of different languages. If you are a new visitor, welcome! If you are a repeat visitor, I’m honoured! Thank you for taking your time to browse my blog and my site. Thank you for your feedback and I hope that you continue to find my blog useful, fun, and informative.

Here are some graphs of where my visitors comes from and what their (computer) languages are: