Pender’s Fabulous Journal of Random Stuff and Things!!!!

Doing oil changes on my bike really sucks. I get oil everywhere then end up using a full roll of scott(tm) brand towels to clean it up. I also have to mop up all the old oil that ends up inside the damned plastics, which is real fun. What I don’t manage to clean out of the plastics seeps out of the crack between the plastics onto the garage floor, slowly. So that I clean it up then notice another puddle again 5 minutes later. What a freakin’ mess.

It took me almost a halfhour to get the damned oil filter off it, it was on there right good. There’s this bracket that goes onto the oil filter, I guess to prevent it from somehow coming loose and hitting a not so innocent bystander while I’m riding (which would end real soon after the oil filter flew off it). Well with the way the plastics are shaped and stuff it is a HUGE pain in the ass getting that stupid bracket on and off. I’m thinking next time I’ll just leave the bracket off. It’s not like the filter has any chance of possibly coming loose, I almost spin the bike with the force of me tightening it. Rawr!

Now I have a pan of oil I have to somehow dump into the 4L oil bottle I bought without spilling it all over the place. It shouldn’t be that bad, I ingeniously invented something I call a “funnel” out of something I call a “2L coke bottle”. I actually had to make that to even get all the oil out of my oil jug when I was filling the bike, the jug is huge (normally I get 4×1L things of oil, but this time they gave me one giant 4L jug) and I couldn’t put it upright enough to get about 200ml of oil out of it without spilling it all over the side of the bike, which I did.

What do I even do with the used oil anyhow? Do I have to pay someone to recycle it or somehow put it into hazardous disposal? How does that even work? Seems to me that shit could be cleaned up pretty easily and re-used.

It’s freezing out and has been raining all day so I get to test it tomorrow.

Similar to Mr. Thumbs, I also bought a trickle charger for my motorcycle. Regularly priced at $30, I got it for $7.50.

The battery says that I can do 0.9A for 5-10hours, or I can do 4A for 1 hour. I figure longer is always better cause that’s what the ladies say (on tv). It doesn’t have the option to do 4A though, which I guess means that I’ll never be able to drain the entire battery and then fill it back up quickly so I can get back into that motorcycle race only an hour behind. Darn.

I was actually able to start the bike on the first try, however the backlit LCD screen was sort of blinking with power weakness, similar to when I had drained the battery a bit when I mistakenly left the key in it and the light was on. So I figured I should charge it up before I try to ride it.

Now all I need is an oil filter and some oils and I can go out! Too bad it’s supposed to rain all weekend… Meh.