The final puzzle piece?

(I forgot to post this yesterday, this is for Friday, the 24th)

So, now that I have a car, the last loose end to tie up is to properly dispose of the rental car. By this point, I was at the dealer, trying to acquire the car. This time, I let the dealer try to figure out this one, since it was nice to have others trying to solve problems for me. This one was more akin to a puzzle.

So, I have a rental car, and my new car at the dealership. I need to get the rental back to the rental place, and I need to be with my car, to drive off. Also, the fox can't be with the chicken, and the chicken can't be with the grain.

So, the plan was... after I got the new car, I'd leave the rental at the dealership (they lock the lot down), and drive home with the new car. Then, the next day, I'd drive to the dealership, they'd get my car to the Norwalk metro station, and I drive in with the rental. (They had their own car and an extra guy to get them back). So, with both cars at the metro, I'd be able to drive the rental back to LAX, then take the metro back to Norwalk (it's on the same line), and I'd hop into the new car and drive back.

So, we got to the metro station, I parked the new car, they left, and I took the rental back to LAX. I'm getting better at not taking silly routes there, but it can always use improvement. However, I took the instructions so well, I forgot to gas it up. And if it's not gassed, they do it themselves, and charge you like 9 dollars a gallon. They let me drive out, I eventually found a gas station, filled it with $20, and went back to dispose of the car.

So, part 1 complete. I asked which shuttle goes to the metro station, and they have a shuttle that goes places. They were supposed to bring me to a bus stop that goes to the metro station, but we ended up talking, and he brought me straight to the metro station, so that was nice. I got a metro card quick, and loaded it with one fare (it was like, $2.50 total), and got on. Now, on a Friday afternoon, it was pretty packed, but I got back out in one piece. The public transportation there is not the greatest, but it worked. I got back to Norwalk station, got in my new car, and went back.

However, the freeway area near there is under construction, and half the connections are shut down. The GPS is still oblivious to this, and tries to send me through most of those. There were traffic jams as well, making a pointless road even more painful. But, I did convince it of a heading, and request to avoid highways, and it gave me a reasonable route. At least until we hit 2 miles of bumper to bumper traffic because of an accident.

By then, I was pretty exhausted and frustrated, so I set my heading to a sushi place near home, because I could really use their all you can eat deal. I eventually made it, but not without picking the wrong entrance, and needing to make a long U-turn. Remember you can't always turn left, and the GPS really tries to avoid left turns, even if it would save a mile of pointless looping.

So, I eventually got in, to notice all the assigned parking was used up. I was trying to figure out a gameplan until I saw people leaving, so I staked out a position and readied to take their spot.

It wasn't the place I was aiming for, they didn't have the all you can eat, or the kimono girls, but it was that first place I found, where I had an awesome lunch, so I made the most of it. Tried all sorts of fish and seafood I didn't usually take. It was still great.

Now, thoroughly exhausted, and out of obvious things to do, I did what any reasonable person would do. I crashed at the computer and played Minecraft. Oh, and I watched some US Netflix before going to bed. Weekend!