George's House

It's Sunday night and life is good. I'm sitting here in my living room watching opening day of the baseball season and waiting for the Laker game to start. I have had a relaxing pleasant Sunday. At church this afternoon they even let me on an open mic which is always kind of fun. The topic of the combined lesson was Hope. I made of comment (I know big surprise) which might be the nexus of a future blog post.

Anyway last week my friend Mike called and asked me if I was interested in going on a tour of the West Wing of the White House. Needless to say I was more than excited for the opportunity. I had been on an East Wing tour a few times but never in the West Wing.

In the Rose Garden. Unfortunately no roses.

Mike gave us the grand tour. One of the unfortunate parts of the West Wing is that you can take pictures in very few places. It was so awesome to see the Oval Office. There was a secret service agent outside the door and he told us all about the room. It really was amazing to see the place where so many important decisions have been made. We also saw the Cabinet room where President Bush meets with the department secretaries.

Yes that is NFL Hall of Famer Troy Aikman. Steve Young was not there.

One of the places that you can take pictures on the tour is the rose garden. I was on the tour with Mike's High School chemistry teacher and family. I was taking some pictures of the family when I noticed a woman who I would describe as striking. I mean she was really made up. She was followed by a woman who I would guess was her mother because she was an older clearly face lifted version of the first lady. Now I haven't spent a lot of time around people I would call "monied" but these two ladies definitely seemed to have that aura about them. I remember thinking "I wonder who they are?" And then walked out Troy Aikman. AHA! His wife and mother in law.I recognized him right away, and after years and years of practice getting my picture taken with famous people I knew that I must not hesitate. I went and introduced myself and politely asked if I could get my picture with him. Although the interaction was brief Troy was really nice and it was unlikely that he knew that there was a time in the mid 90's when my greatest hope was that he would get pummeled at the hands of Bryant Young and Dana Stubblefield.

Look out Dana Perino. I'm angling for your job.

Mike took us to see the White House Press Pool. This is the room where they have a lot of the President's news conferences. They recently remodeled this room so I couldn't stand behind podium because they have a fancy new podium with all sorts of technology built in.

I took a seat in the Press Pool where all of the major news outlets. Helen Thomas has her seat in the front row. I chose not to sit there but rather farther back. I'm not sure whose chair I was in but I eventually found the LA Times seat.

Wading in the Press Pool

So yet again I lucked into an awesome opportunity. I was seriously impressed by the White House and I was grateful that Mike invited me.