My nephew Manny and I walked over from the Washington monument to the ellipse facing side of the white house. I spoke to one of the guards and asked if I could take pictures using my tripod. They said I could so long as I stayed on the ellipse side of the street. While taking some HDR sequences, we noticed that the 3rd floor, first family residence lights were on and we could see someone walking around and a TV was on. Everyone needs to kick back after work I guess.