Ray Porter
Chapel Hill, NC
2023
Gloria Rhodes Porter (Pam)
The love of my life and I were married in January of 1991. Pam's family is from the coast of North Carolina where her dad still lives. We met playing Dungeons and Dragons with a group of about 10 friends when she was only 17 years old. I am several years older than Pam (13 to be precise) and for that reason, and because she was seeing someone, else it was several years before we started dating and a few years more before we married. Pam also attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she earned her BS in Nursing with Honors in 1996. Since then she has worked hard at her career and is now a senior critical care nurse at a major teaching hospital. She will be returning to graduate school soon with the goal of earning her MS in Nursing Informatics. Like most couples, in our nearly three decades together we've had our ups and downs but it's mostly been a great shared experience. Pam is my love, my partner and my soulmate and I can't imagine life with anyone else.
Since last I wrote, Pam has finished her MSN in nursing informatics at Duke and has begun a new career as the nurse informaticist for Duke Home Care and Hospice.
Nicholas Brack Porter (Nick)
To our amazement and everlasting joy, after several years of trying to start a family, we were gifted with the birth of our son in January 2001. Since then, Nick has been a constant source of joy, entertainment and frustration. Nick has attended camp at Camp Sea Gull in Arapahoe, NC since he was 3 years old, while his mom worked there as a camp nurse in the summer. Over the years he has become an avid sailor and has developed a deep love of the ocean and all its creatures. Over the summer of 2018 he worked as a counselor at Sea Gull and taught master sunfish sailing classes to the campers. He hopes to major in marine sciences when he heads off to college (at some so far undetermined university) next year. For now, Nick is fully involved in his senior year at Woods Charter School in Chapel Hill, NC.
It's hard to believe that so much time has passed since I updated this page. Nick is now just weeks away from graduating from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington with a double major in Oceanography and Geology. He will have to complete one summer school course in place of a field trip to Death Valley that didn't work out post-graduation, but except for that course, he'll be done on May 13, 2023.
Gandalf, Ghost and Gryphon
Sadly, our old Maine Coon cats, Flash and Nimitz, passed away about 18 months ago at 14 years of age. We took a break from pets to recover from their loss but have now adopted 3 new Maine Coon kittens from SaraJen Maine Coons in Arlington, VA. Now we each have our own kitten. Mine is named Gandalf (as in Gandalf the Grey) and is a classic silver white. Pam's kitten is Gryphon, a brown mackerel tabby. Nick's kitten is Ghost, a silver ticked tabby. These guys are just over 15 weeks old and already weigh in at more than 7 pounds each. They're going to be big when they grow up. Their sire, Nick on the SaraJen site, is somewhere around 25 pounds. Right now they are little (well, not so little) balls of energy that are making life very interesting in the Porter household.