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About Me
Hi there! My name is Christian Willis, and I collect Hemingray glass insulators as a hobby. It all started in 1990 when I was about 9 years old—My dad Bud took me antiquing at the Orange Circle in Orange, California. I only had $3.00 to spend, and the only thing I could find priced for that amount was a weird green glass thing. I just thought it was cool, so I bought it. Little did I know...
Intrigued, my father and I visited the library in Laguna Niguel, CA to research what these odd pieces of glass were. Before long, we were in touch with Carol McDougald of Crown Jewels of the Wire Magazine, and from there the National Insulator Association (NIA). We learned that there was an annual antique bottle and insulator show held in Bakersfield, CA, which we attended for the first time in 1992. I became a member of the NIA shortly afterwards.
I must say, a lot has happened in the past 30+ years of collecting! I've met many lifelong friends, displayed portions of my collection at several shows and won several awards, joined the NIA Board of Directors, and learned a lot about insulators and the history behind them! While my interests have continued to evolve over time, one thing will always remain the same: my love of insulators, that all started from that one chance purchase at an antique shop as a kid. If you love history, making friends, and collecting, this is a truly great hobby to be involved in. Join the NIA today!
This website began in 2002 when I purchased "Hemingray.info", around the time that the .info domain name debuted. Hemingray.com, Hemingray.net, and Hemingray.org were already being used by fellow Hemingray enthusiasts Bob Stahr, Shaun Kotlarsky, and Bill Meier, respectively.
Initially this site started out just as a "place on the web" for me to put my personal info: show journals, insulator photos, and Laugh Lines comics. Over the years, though, I wanted to expand the site to actually be what its name implied: information on Hemingray insulators!
In May 2003, Hemingray.info version 2.0 was launched. The site was now a hybrid of Hemingray information and personal features. Over the months, I added the Hemingray Database, which at the time was MANUALLY input! It was months of work, and contained literally hundreds of individual HTML pages. It was an absolute nightmare to maintain, as you can probably imagine.
Fast forward to the year 2008: While working towards my Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology, my eyes were opened to the wonderful world of dynamic pages and relational databases! Through mostly self-study, I learned how to code in PHP and MySQL. Bill Meier of Insulators.info even helped me out, which I truly appreciate!
In 2009, I revamped the site once again (version 3.0). This completed the transition to Hemingray insulators as being the main focus of the site.
Fast forward another 11 years, and here we are in 2021. Mobile devices have long been the dominant device for displaying web sites, HTML 5 and CSS 3 are the new standards, and my PHP code was woefully out of date. Even the Hemingray Database was becoming out of date with the newest additions to the price guide. It was time to redesign the web site again! Version 4.0 went live in February 2021.
Even now, this web site is constantly changing, a lot of it behind the scenes that visitors will never see. But I'm always using this site to continually better my amateur programming skills. I hope you enjoy it! And if you have any suggestions on how to improve your experience here, please let me know!