John DeAguiar <<off10flying>> writes:

The Mission: Get 5 glider pilots from one hotel to the
airport in the fewest cabs, at the lowest cost, and with the smallest carbon
footprint.

The Constraint: Texas law allows at most 4 passengers in each cab.

The Plan: Since 2 pilots want to leave extra early and we need two cabs
anyway, we request one cab at 4:00am and one cab at 4:30am. Matt Taber and Davis
Straub would go in the earliest cab, and Jeff Nicolay, Mark Gaskill, and John
DeAguiar would go in the later cab.

What Actually Happened:

• I speculate that the 4:00am cab showed up on time, and that
  Matt was there in time to catch it. Matt probably waited around for Davis,
  who never showed up, then left by himself.


• Davis awoke in his hotel room (across the street) at 4:05am,
  raced out the door, and caught the first cab he saw. He went to the airport
  by himself. Turns out that Davis is on the same flight as Jeff and John, and
  he could easily have gone in the 4:30am cab.


• Jeff was down in the hotel lobby early at 4:15am, which would
  normally be a good thing. Unfortunately, the cab company mistakenly sent a
  cab at 4:15am, and the cabbie pressured Jeff to get in and head out. He went
  to the airport by himself.


• John was down in the lobby at about 4:20am, and printed out
  his boarding pass. The 4:30 cab arrived on time, but Mark Gaskill was
  nowhere to be found. The clerk called his room twice and got no answer. John
  left by himself at 4:35.


• Regarding Mark, the hotel desk said that he had already
  checked out when I was trying to reach him. I speculate that he either
  caught the 4:00am cab with Matt, or slept through his alarm and the phone
  calls.

Result: Four or five cabs were required to get the five
pilots to the airport.

Lesson: I’ll leave this to the imagination of the reader.