Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Cleaning Party-BYOB

 Bring Your Own Broom is how the invites would have read if I would have been smart enough to put up some beer in exchange for help cleaning my shop.

 With winters bitter grasp just weeks away I figured it was time to get things organized in the disaster area I call my garage. I made space for my wifes chariot but the other side that should be open for my truck is still littered with motorcycles and related parts. Every time I'd buy a new "something shiny" for the Ultra Limited I would put the stock piece in the box and toss it to the side. Now it's time to gather that stuff up and find a home for it. The Ultra needs a home too and the way I see it there are three choices...
  1. Pay for storage at the Harley dealer. If I were the kind of guy that was gonna have a shop do some work on it over the winter then that would be a good option. I'm not that kind of guy so nix that idea.
  2. Find a different home for some wood working tools in the garage. A big old table saw my grandpa used when he built his house is taking up valuable real estate and doesn't get used much. Relocating that and a few other pieces would make enough room for the bike.
  3. Store it in the enclosed trailer. Only downside to this is if I want to use the trailer then I have to unload a heavy bike in potentially slippery conditions. I smell mini disaster.


 I'm leaning toward option 2 because we still haven't talked about the Sportster. That needs a home and would be a lot easier to roll in and out of the trailer plus I want to work on it this winter. There's plenty of room in the trailer to work around the bike and pull pieces off as needed for repair.
 Then there is the BSA. I painted the frame and that was taking up space on the garage floor. Of course a bare frame means a hundred other pieces that were once bolted to that frame also need a home. I couldn't move it into the heated shop yet because that still looks like a bomb went off after completing the Rat Turd fuel tank project. At least the rat has a warm home for the winter in our living room.


 Scrub, scrub. I'll scrub this shop floor once a year whether it needs it or not. No it isn't sparkly clean but it does smell a lot better in here.
 The other day my wife walked through here, looked at my desk, then looked at me and said "You and I really are two different people when it comes to cleaning." How can I argue with that statement when a stack of paperwork is winning the battle for space on the desk and pushing my laptop, well...almost into my lap. Imagine that. I removed a garbage can full of junk off this desk. In that heap I found a gift card for $75(turns out it was used up), two laptops(plus this one I'm typing on), some old unchecked lottery tickets(I won a buck!), the remote for my shop stereo, a pair of socks(possibly part of the reason for the bad smell in here), and a lot of paperwork that needed filing(mostly file 13). I found some other trinkets that I'd never miss if thrown out but seem too good to do so. If they are still here next fall then I will execute the "not used for one year" rule and they will go in the trash.


 Now the cleaning is mostly done. The BSA made it into the shop rather than the sportster. I guess seeing it there every day might inspire me to come up with a plan for how it will look when it's finished. Besides, the temps are still above freezing and more importantly, they haven't had to use any salt on the roads yet. That salt will mark the end of my riding season.

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