May 3rd

I think I must enjoy arguing with old dudes about car prices, because one again, I've been at it. However, I ended up with his price this time instead of mine.

Wait, what? I know, we already have a car we're fixing. Something is missing though. It needs new innards. So how did we decide on what the new innards were going to be.

Cowboy made a DAR for it. For all you CMMI nerds out there, I can hear your snickers. For those of you who wonder what insanity we're laughing at, a DAR template or DAR is a Decision Analysis Resolution process in the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), a process improvement framework. Both Cowboy and I are extremely familiar with this due to our day jobs, which lack the glamour of grease covered hands, metal shavings in our mouths, and aching muscles, but do afford us the challenge of problem solving in a different way.

I laughed when he whipped out the template with the options.

"Did you seriously do a DAR for this?"

"Yes. Here's the options you have." The list had a decent range of options.  This however, was the best one that met my need for low gas mileage and good power for the Nissan's size.

 

After arguing with an old dude about price, we brought home a 1999 Camaro with a 3800 engine and a manual transmission.

 

Eldest minion, upon seeing the car asked, "Is this ours?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Oh. Poor car. You'll be dead soon."

 

Not so much dead, minion of mine, just different. Very different. You all know what's coming, you shouldn't be so shocked.