What A Summer

 

What a summer this has been, last fall I got this beautiful 85 Firebird to use as my summer daily driver, I figure best to practice in the same kind of car as KITT. Any ways, first I had to get a lot of work done on her to make her road ready, some over $15,00. worth of body work, still needs a little more, minor stuff really, then a safety inspection, that cost another $25,00. and then a few surprise repairs while just out road testing. She mostly needs cosmetic and some minor mechanical stuff done but I have to say, she's in better shape than I am lol

I have to thank Ron and his team over at T-Mac Auto Services over on Ness Ave. for all of their fine work helping me get her on the road. I got her registered as a collectors vehicle so I have nice yellow collectors plates on her.

There's a lot more work I want to do on her. I got a new fiberglass Head Liner from Joe Penko that I just need to get the fabric for. I want to install a dash camera and back-up camera, GPS and some other modern goodies. I might even add some Knight Rider parts like an upper and lower console, have not decided yet??

I so need to loose weight lol like I say she's in better shape than I am ;)

I've got to get out more, walking, bike ridding, not so much driving but only having just got my drivers license last year I wanted to take advantage of the short summer moths as much as possible. So I got out to a few of my favorite old haunts which was very nostalgic for me.

Also had to spend some money and time getting the car port finished so in the winter I can keep her out of the elements.

This is an old photo of the car port under construction just last fall, it's more complete now so I'll have to take new pictures of it. My sweetie and I call this Firebird "KATT" I guess you could say it stands for "Knight Agencies 2000" lol. So we have KITT and KATT ;) Yeah kind of whacky I know.

Speaking of KITT, yeah he's been unfortunately mothballed while I got KATT road ready and with Covid in full swing it has not been easy either financially or socially to get my team together and get KITT all fixed up. which is nothing really, all he needs is his seals changed and put back together, but I've just had no time or opportunity this summer, we'll se how next summer goes depending on how much I spend on KATT. In any event it's just been nice finally being able to drive an 80's Firebird ;)

Giving KITT Even More Of A Free Will

One of the things I liked most about KITT in Knight Rider was his ability to act entirely on his own. Many of you may know I have several scenarios where my KITT can do that... well, maybe you don't know?? I'm under the impression nobody reads my blog posts, they are more for me really anyways just so that I have a complete record of everything I am doing with this project from start to "finish," I like that word "finish" because it implies that I may actually be done with this project at some point, and I have to laugh at that because I'm constantly thinking of new things that I know are possible and I want to do them it always just comes down to that steep learning curve of self teaching myself "How to do it."... Anyways I kind of got off topic there, my mind does tend to wander ;) Anyways, as I was saying I always liked the idea that KITT could act on his own and in the past I have built in many scenarios where based on certain conditions KITT seems to do just that. I've come up with other ways to give KITT more of a free will based on numerous scenarios and conditions, even a bit of a "moral compass" if you will, based on simply "Is something moral or legal" as it's pretty much a black and white situation with little grey area, which also can be pretty clearly defined. So I kind of figure in our minds we have a list or lists of "Do's and Don'ts" just as an example, so giving KITT the same sort of list so to speak to check on any given scenarios gives KITT a little more information to not only better form a response but also act accordingly given a particular scenario.

A rough example would be something like:

"Hey KITT"
"What Michael?"
"Let's blow some red lights pal"
"That's illegal Michael"

KITT's normal response is pretty "Canned" in that although he responds from a random array, his response's have still been pretty much "Pre-determined." But giving KITT a list of things he can check on his own to see if something exist on that list now gives him the ability to make a more informed response instead of a "canned" one. On the outside you would never really notice much difference really, I just like the idea that he's responding based on more information than just a random response array ;)