what a cool thing. we were rambling around the national gallery yesterday, and i sync’d my email on my phone. there was an email from a guy named paul perkins. he said he was a ysmarko blog reader, and also worked in the white house. he noticed we were in washington, and wondered if we’d like a tour of the west wing (the part of the white house where the president works). we weren’t clear on who can tour what part of the white house — but i guess anyone can arrange a tour of the more formal part of the white house (the rooms used for large events) with their senator’s or representative’s office. but you can only get a tour of the west wing with a white house staffer. paul (our tour guide) works as an assistant in harriet myers’ office.

the tour was very cool. we saw the rose garden, the oval office, the entrance to the situation room (couldn’t see inside), the cabinet room, the senior staff room, the hallway to rumsfeld, cheney and rove’s offices (tiny hallway, lots of power), and the press room. here’s me making an obviously good point at the podium in the press room (which, by the way, is the dumpiest room we’ve seen in all the public buildings we’ve been in)…

then, while we were chatting with paul, our tour guide, i had my third random encounter of the week. a couple years back we heard from zondervan about a book they’d published for men called “when good men are tempted”. they (zondervan) were suggesting we consider publishing a youth version. so we hooked the author up with one of our writers, randy southern, and together they created our invert book called “the naked truth”. well, that book was written by bill perkins. turns out, our wonderful tour guide last night is the son of a YS author! ha! what a weird and wonderful small world.

thanks paul, if you read this, it was a wonderful treat to tour the west wing — and great to meet you.