Mark and Peter, thanks so much for your help and suggestions! My final fix was a bit different from your suggestions for a few reasons: I wanted it to be less fancy and more readable, I wanted it to be less greedy about getting results, I needed it to fit in with the way my current code worked, and I wanted to future proof it as much as possible. Your suggestions were very helpful because they gave me ideas of what to look for and what to try.

I think I like the current version I've got, which is:
Code:
timeWithWeirdSpaceInTheMiddle=$(echo $googleQueryResult | \
grep -o -E -m 1 '[0-9]{1,2}:[0-5][0-9].(AM|PM|am|pm|A\.M\.|P\.M\.|a\.m\.|p\.m\.)' | \
head -n 1 )

I know that the am/pm section could be written with fewer characters, but that version is the most readable.

Full code of my changes (including the somewhat involved fix for LC_ALL) is checked in here.

Thanks again!
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Tony Fabris