{"id":167,"date":"2005-03-11T09:07:43","date_gmt":"2005-03-11T09:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/?p=167"},"modified":"2005-03-11T09:07:43","modified_gmt":"2005-03-11T09:07:43","slug":"hitchhike-bus-or-yellow-cab-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/?p=167","title":{"rendered":"hitchhike, bus, or yellow cab it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I like taking buses.  You can meet interesting people, eavesdrop on some interesting conversations, and see interesting parts of the city.  True, some of these are more &#8220;interesting&#8221; than interesting.  For example, you can find yourself involved in the oddest conversations without warning and with no effort on your part.  Like the time I was standing waiting for the bus, and some guy walked up to me and abruptly started telling me all about his <i>teeth<\/i>, and the various dental work he&#8217;d had done recently.  Then there was the fellow who appeared at the bus stop and started giving me job-search advice, stopping occasionally to inform me that he looked like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0000527\/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxsbT01MDB8dHQ9b258ZmI9dXxwbj0wfHE9d2FsdGVyIG1hdHRoYXV8aHRtbD0xfG5tPW9u;fc=1;ft=20\">Walter Matthau<\/a> (he sort of did) and that he should &#8220;marry a woman.&#8221;  Well okay.<br \/>\nIn Lincoln, there was this local cult-type thing which aggressively proselytized to people, buttonholing them on the street and peppering them with questions about their spiritual life.  One of <i>three<\/i> times this happened to me was while I was waiting for the bus&#8211;annoying, I couldn&#8217;t escape until the bus came.  Simply assuring these people that I was a Christian and had a church wasn&#8217;t enough, they were determined to find out all about my religious practices.  The other two times I can remember encountering them was (1) while innocently walking down the street and (2) at a new job I had when someone from that church acted like they wished to befriend me&#8211;really just wanted me to join the church.  This is exactly the sort of thing that made me not want to be a Christian before I was one, so good thing I already was by that time, I guess.<br \/>\nBut, back to the bus.  I&#8217;ve taken the bus to work twice in the last two weeks.  I&#8217;ve already found myself involved in one peculiar conversation, and have stood witness to many others.  I&#8217;ve been through parts of GR I&#8217;ve never seen before in my nearly two years here, including some that I want to explore more.  And, the bus would give me plenty of time to sit and read, if I could ever remember to bring a book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I like taking buses. You can meet interesting people, eavesdrop on some interesting conversations, and see interesting parts of the city. True, some of these are more &#8220;interesting&#8221; than interesting. For example, you can find yourself involved in the oddest conversations without warning and with no effort on your part. Like the time I was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}