Guests

Date: April 24, 2007 * It's late, and all the grumpy business traveler wants to do is collapse into eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Her cab enters the driveway of a high-end chain hotel that her company uses to put up employees away on business. A device at the mouth of the driveway scans the cab and homes in on a computer chip embedded in a plastic card in the businesswoman's wallet.

Twenty million people will visit Southern California this summer. Sometimes, it may feel as if they all will be staying with you. House guests are a fact of life for Los Angeles residents, who live in a tourist mecca. They can be fun. But they also can drive you crazy. "Last summer, we were booked solid every weekend for four months," said Liza Anderson, a 27-year-old graphic designer who has dubbed her Hermosa Beach home "Hotel Anderson."

When Elliot Aleskow recently checked into the Montage Beverly Hills, the Maryland doctor got a room with what seemed to be typical hotel amenities: A bed, a flat-screen TV, curtains, an alarm clock, lamps and a remote control. But there was nothing typical about the room's built-in technology. Using the remote control and an on-screen television menu, Aleskow programmed the alarm clock to play his favorite music in the morning. He also opened the curtains and set the room temperature and lighting just the way he likes it -- all by pushing a few buttons on the remote.

Twenty-one years ago, President Ronald Reagan invited Lenny Skutnik to sit next to First Lady Nancy Reagan in the House gallery during the State of the Union address. Two weeks earlier, Skutnik had dived into the icy Potomac River to rescue a passenger aboard an Air Florida plane that had crashed on takeoff.

Been invited to a holiday party that you'd really prefer to skip? Dying to regift Aunt Mitzi's potpourri of questionable origin? We surveyed creative minds for answers to holiday conundrums. You may not agree with the advice, but at least it's free. To launch our 101 suggestions for holiday cheer, we start with that perennial question: QUESTION: How do you handle the party guest who's had too much eggnog? Ed Begley Jr. Ed Begley Jr. , actor and environmentalist: I married her. Mary Sue Milliken , chef and restaurateur: Have more eggnog myself.

The Land Commissioner of the Great State of Texas was buck naked in the White House when the thought hit him. Relaxing upstairs in a warm bath, he suddenly realized he was not unwinding in just any old bathroom. He was soaking in history. "I remember reading about how Roosevelt rolled his wheelchair into the [same] bathroom while Churchill was taking a bubble bath and smoking a cigar," said Garry Mauro, citing an occasion more than five decades ago when Winston Churchill visited Franklin D.

The Vasquezes' house guest rose on his own Thursday morning, bounding out of his room about 6 a.m. with a cheery "Good morning!" Good thing too, Gloria Vasquez thought to herself. Because how, after all, does one wake up the vice president of the United States?

Jay Leno said it best when he was kidding around recently with "Tonight Show" bandleader Kevin Eubanks. "I can't believe how much money you have, Kevin," he joked. "Even your guest house has a guest house." In Los Angeles, guest houses are about privacy, interesting design and increasingly luxury. Whether large or small, most provide an intimate personal space set well apart from the main dwelling.

One of the first signs that we were on an Army base was this posting on the path that leads to the Hacienda Guest Lodge: "You are entering a no-hat, no-salute area." The second came on our first morning here, the kind of day that only California can deliver. Songbirds warbled. The mist had lifted, and the sun was warm on my face as I sat on a rough-hewn bench under a portico at the 18th century San Antonio de Padua Mission, not far from the lodge. Then came the rat-a-tat-tat of machine-gun fire.

What's the hottest ticket in the nation's capital? An engraved invitation to Tuesday's White House state dinner, the first hosted by President Obama. He and the first lady will honor India's prime minister. But in a departure from the traditional venue -- the elegant State Dining Room -- the Obamas will gather with a few hundred VIPs in a huge, heated tent on the South Lawn. The guest list for the black-tie gala remains a closely guarded secret. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will certainly be there.