My 30th birthday

It was a bad day for me. For one thing, I quit smoking. I was up to 5 packs of Marlboro a day, and I quit cold turkey. (And I've never had a cigaret again since that day.)

Then I called friends all afternoon suggesting we go out to dinner, bu
erybody had plans. Oh well. I sat in my office drinking bourbon and feeling sorry for myself.

Then Henry showed up at my office door and asked me to help him set up a photo shoot in his studio in the bottom floor of the building.

We walked down the stairs and he turned on the lights, and everybody yelled SURPRISE! It was the staff of Santa Barbara Magazine. They'd decorated the basement studio with aluminum-foil stars in honor of my obsession with astronomy and science fiction.

The group
Henry and Jurgen
Scott, Henry, Jane, Jurgen
Another shot
More group