OK, I'm back... Metro Rail works wonderfully well. The blue line trains do move a little slowly. The transfers are really easy though. JS and wingless have provided excellent advice. The whole trip was very stress-free. Unfortunately, it does take a little over one hour to complete the journey.
One great feature of downtown transit I'd like to highlight is the DASH. It was fabulous-- shuttling me all over downtown for only $0.25! I will never rent a car when staying downtown again. From now on, I will be using rail & DASH.
http://www.mta.net
http://www.ladottransit.com/index_flash.html