Advice

Question: My 9-year-old daughter recently flew as an unaccompanied minor from LAX to Boise, Idaho. The fee was $99 each way, but there was no real service. I had to take her to the gate, she was picked up at the gate by my friend and on the flight she was treated just like everybody else. Besides that, she was seated next to a male passenger. Her soccer team can't even practice with the two male coaches without a mom being there. We were shocked. What is the policy? Kirstin Heidenwag Redondo Beach Answer: When it comes to facets, the Hope Diamond can only dream of having as many as this issue.

Ah, the holidays.  Such a cozy time - filled with turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce and bonhomie.  And such a potential minefield for your health.  For every delicious meal, there are pounds to pack on and food-borne creepy-crawlies to avoid; for every long-awaited reunion, emotional stress to keep at bay.   In keeping with the spirit of the season, experts have loaded up the Web with heaping helpings of holiday advice.  Some of...

Marty Ingels, the actor and comedian whose wife is Oscar-winning actress and "Partridge Family" mom Shirley Jones, could not believe the injustice. He went into a photo shop on Ventura Boulevard, looked out the window and saw a ticket on his car windshield. Ingels charged outside, read the ticket and was convinced there'd been a terrible mistake. The ticket was for parking in a bus zone. Ingels looked left, he looked right. No bus zone. Not long after, Ingels called a colleague of mine at The Times, who passed his story on to me. I called him to ask what he'd done about the ticket.

Here are some things to remember when getting a home appraisal: • You're not the client. The appraiser is hired by a management company and the lender is the appraiser's client. • Attend the inspection. This gives you a chance to question the appraiser and determine competence. • Ask questions. Beyond the basic license, does the appraiser have professional designations that signify additional experience? Does the appraiser have access to the Multiple Listing Service?

Memo to the California GOP: Rough couple of weeks, huh? First you found out that the number of registered Republicans in California has dipped below 30%, which means we are fast approaching the day when the entire state membership can fit into two golf carts. To make matters worse, of the 1 million people who used a new online voter registration system this election cycle, only 20% registered as Republicans. And 60% of those who registered were under 35, which means your future's not looking great.

The Lakers brought in forward Antawn Jamison in the off-season to help bolster the team's bench.  Jamison is a 14-year veteran with career averages of 19.5 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. As a Laker, he's been relatively quiet as a reserve, scoring just 4.3 points per game in just 16.8 minutes. "I've never been the one who tried to rush into anything," said Jamison.  "I just kind of go with the flow of things and eventually things will start to click. You know, I've been hearing it, 'You gotta be aggressive.  You gotta be aggressive,' but I'm just going to stay within the flow of the offense.

SACRAMENTO - If you're still scratching your head over the long list of state ballot propositions, here's a voter's guide. It's not to be confused with those slick home mailers, often produced by political profiteers masquerading under some phony name such as "Californians for the American Way and Cute Puppies. " Don't even bring that stuff into the house. Half of you probably already have voted by mail. But for the other half who will cast ballots the old-fashioned way Tuesday, here's my take on the 11 props.

National Novel Writing Month, known as NaNoWriMo to its fans and detractors, kicks off today. The idea is that in 30 days, anyone who sets his or her mind to it can write a 50,000-word novel. That comes out to about 175 pages -- short for a novel, but not easy to pull off in a single month. So there are many people who seek -- and offer -- advice on how to make it happen. I'm one of them, and I've got all you need: Get off the Internet. You still here? That's all right.

StemCells Inc. has a history not much different from those of dozens, even hundreds, of biotech companies all around California. Co-founded by an eminent Stanford research scientist, the Newark, Calif., firm has struggled financially while trying to push its stem cell products through the research-and-development pipeline. It collects about $1 million a year from licensing patents and selling cell cultures but spends well more than $20 million annually on R&D, so it runs deeply in the red. On the plus side, StemCells Inc. has had rather a charmed relationship with the California stem cell program, that $3-billion taxpayer-backed research fund known formally as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

The thousands of men expelled from the Boy Scouts of America on suspicion of molesting children came from all walks of life - teachers and plumbers, doctors and bus drivers, politicians and policemen. They ranged in age from teens to senior citizens and came from troops in every state. As the Scouts long have said, the files suggest no single profile of a predator. But a close look at nearly 1,900 confidential files opened between 1970 and 1991 revealed a pattern: Many suspected molesters engaged in what psychologists today call "grooming behavior," a gradual seduction in which predators lavish children with attention, favors and gifts.