Let me be blunt for a change. I hate working on things mechanical. The problem is that I am surrounded by them and from time to time they need to be tended to and an oil change is an absurdly simple thing so I am forced, kicking and screaming to undertake this simple task from time to time.
Years ago, frustrated by America's unwillingness to join the One World Government conspiracy I bought a Metrench tool kit off a television advertisement. In my defense my wife and I were planning the sailing trip of our lives and we were nervous as hell and unable to sleep so we stayed up late at night and assuaged our fears by buying things off the television. The tools in the kit have oddly shaped edges and cover both SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) measurements in fractions of an inch (arrrgh!) and metric sizes measured in individual millimeters (sweet!). 
I wasted hours looking for a gallon of Mobil One synthetic oil I bought at K-Mart on sale ages ago and have now lost. So I took off and picked up four quarts (American quarts are .946 of a liter so are essentially indistinguishable. If you want to know why Imperial and American measurements are different I will explain another time if you ask rudely) of Coastal synthetic. Hey man these are the Keys and you can't just bop out and expect to find Mobil oil at the Mobil gas station in Big Pine. I should have gone to the Mobil in Summerland but then I'd have been tempted by Dions Fried Chicken and that would have been the wrong kind of grease. 
29,000 miles ago I made my first change on my 865cc Bonneville twin and discovered it takes precisely four quarts with a new oil filter. I dropped in the last half quart very carefully, waiting 15 minutes to make sure I hadn't exceeded the oil level. And I found four quarts fit exactly...so nowadays I throw in four quarts and forget about shaving off a hundred centiliters here and there like the book says. In two years I have 31,000 miles and a nicely running engine. Works for me. 
First, park the motorcycle in a flat cement area which you won't mind spotting with used and fresh engine oil (flooding if you screw up and kick something by accident). Use the optional $250 Triumph center stand to make the job easier and less likely to drop the 500 pound machine on top of you. Whip out your 13mm box wrench (spanner) and stick it on the oil drain nut. If you are in this position facing the rear wheel pull the wrench towards you, hoping the last twat to tighten it up didn't overdo the job. Crack the nut and start to loosen it with your finger:
If you are a namby pamby tort-lawyer-raised person or someone who worries about the viability of their testes or ovaries you might want to wear rubber/latex gloves to keep all petroleum products from giving you cancer. I am a rather more devil-may-care type of chap and go at this job bare handed with the inevitable result: my finger nails get a black rim to them for several days, despite my best cleaning endeavors. Oil gets everywhere:
Make sure the collection tray is well in front of the hole...the warm oil will spurt quite a ways under pressure. A word about warming the oil. Most schools of thought agree that running the engine for five minutes to warm and circulate the oil is the best way to start this job. Some people, just to be perverse no doubt, think you should do the job cold to make sure any contaminants are in the bottom of the crankcase/oil tank. Me? I warm the engine, always have and always will not least because the oil runs more freely. Everywhere.
I let my bike get a professional oil change every other time because the Bonneville gets a major tune up every 12,000 miles, including a general lubrication, valve clearance check and yes, an oil and filter change. So usually the nut is on good and tight and with my pansy little tools my meaty hands tend to get in the way. Viz the blood:
So, we now have the warm oil draining into the pan, oil on the floor, and on my hands, a couple of oily rags with blood spatters as I try to a) get the carcinogenic oil particles directly into my bloodstream and b) use the oily rags to keep the dripping blood to a minimum. And let's not forget to remove the oil filler cap to allow the oil to drain faster and we hope more efficiently. In the Haynes manual they use a 50 pence coin because they are English. In the US and Canada you could use a quarter. At my impecunious house we use a screw driver.
While we wait for the old oil to drain we pass an oily rag over the bottom of the motorcycle, wiping off crud and checking nuts bolts and frame welds. We look at the plug with it's aluminum washer. You are supposed to change the little aluminum ring when you change the oil. I never have any to hand so I just stick the old one back on and forget about it. I expect the shop to replace it every other oil change and that should do. You can be as compulsive as you need on that one. 
Tra la tra la we wait and wait for the oil to finish draining...You could take the filter off now and perhaps speed it up but that makes an even bigger mess so I just wait and think about how valuable engine oil really is. It lubricates, which is to say it prevents moving metal parts from touching each other. If the piston ever actually touched the cylinder wall as it runs up and down the result would be what's known as seizing, usually with fatal results. The hot oil provides a film a millionth of a millimeter thick that prevents the parts from touching. Bearings do the same thing, spinning essentially in a very fine oil bath. All this at temperatures that would burn your hand were you to touch the oil. Oil washes the parts it lubricates and carries any stray dirt or particles to the filter, which like the human liver, washes the oil clean for it's return trip ( the liver washes the blood, we aren't supposed to have engine oil in our veins). So you need to change the oil on time if not sooner. Some weirdos make the claim that changing the oil too often doesn't allow it to break down and do it's job. Whatever. change it as often as you like as far as I'm concerned if you have the time and money to waste. The Bonneville is supposed to go an incredible 6,000 miles (10,000 kilometers) between changes. I can't last that long...In the good old days 3,000 miles was considered as long as you could go.
Drip, drip, drip. Still waiting. Oil from diesel engines comes out looking completely black and some people think the color of the oil determines it's useful life. However if we remember that engine oil cools by lubricating we understand that the important part is not the color necessarily but the consistency. For fun (and to help the cancer along) you can rub the oil between your fingers and see if it feels like water or lubricious like oil. Remember too it needs to feel like a lubricant at a lot higher temperatures, and high temps like to break oil down, so even if the used oil feels like silk at these temperatures it is still probably time to change it.
DO NOT FORGET TO PUT THE DRAIN PLUG BACK. Do it now, before you do anything else. Tighten it tight enough but don't overdo it. You'll feel it get snug, even if you don't have a torque wrench.
Now we deal with the oil filter. If you don't have a filter skip this part. If you are intimidated by the filter change get comfortable changing the oil only and take the bike to the shop after a few thousand miles to have an early "proper" oil AND filter change. When the engine is new filter changes are important. As the engine gets old they remain important. Personally I'd rather get just the oil changed if that was all I could manage and leave the old filter in place. It will probably still do it's job just fine and fresh oil is a great good thing for the engine. If this job is new to you learn a little at a time and one day changing the filter will be as easy as draining the oil. Tools help.
You can get filter wrenches that come with little straps you slide round the filter and pull to give greater leverage. They don't work for me as the filter is usually tucked up in a space that doesn't allow the strap and handle to maneuver. This universal wrench from Advanced Autoparts works nicely for me. As seen upside down, grab the filter and twist gently. It should break loose easily.
When it comes loose finish the job by (gloved) hand. Oil will run down the filter as the thing is a cup and may contain 250 milliliters (one quarter of a quart= a cup!? Oh, new world order where art thou?) which has to go somewhere. Hopefully you have spread an old towel under the bike and are lying comfortably as you grope. I bought my oil collection pan from Napa ("No Auto Parts Available") and it has a proper little hump in the middle. Thats the place you put the filter to allow it to drain.
Gently push the pan aside and use an oil rag to catch the last drips from the filter housing. Push the pan gently, or cause a tidal wave and get oil EVERYWHERE. Now get your new filter, hopefully a Triumph original part because they are guaranteed to work with your bike, or if you live in the Keys or some other isolated place and your dealer recently closed you will make do with a fine, properly sized after market brand. Stick your (gloved) finger into a bottle of fresh oil...
...and apply it gently to create an oily film on the rubber gasket of the new filter.
You can use burned oil if you want but what the hell, we have fresh oil to spare. It only takes light lubrication. This is to prevent the oil gasket from tearing when you screw the new filter on. If you forget to lubricate the gasket it may catch and tear and create an oil leak, and we don't want that. Immediately stick the filter back on, tighten by hand, and if your hand is greasy than wrap the filter in a less oily rag and keep turning the filter on it's housing. You will feel it get tight suddenly. Triumph kindly puts the filter under the engine on the Bonneville series. Some manufacturers put the filter where removal will drip oil everywhere. Some people prefer a hidden filter hoping it won't get hit by a rock when riding in gravel. Personally I like it just where it is. Everything about this oil change is easy.
Now you have the plug back in the engine, the filter is on hand tight and you have a funnel in the oil filler hole behind the right hand cylinder. Wedge the funnel with some rags else the weight of the oil will tip it over. Pour in four quarts, or if this is your first time pour in much of the fourth quart and keep adding gobs at the end and checking the little window to make sure it is at the right height. When you have it at the right height, put the cap on and run the engine. Let it sit for 15 minutes and see where the level is. This gets very tedious especially if you don't have a center stand. I chuck in the four quarts, replace the cap and clean up.
DO NOT THROW THE OLD OIL DOWN THE STORM DRAIN. Surely you know to recycle it? Some people may not know and if so they are best off leaving this whole operation to a professional. For the rest of us, take your empty bottles, prop them up with old towels to prevent the weight of the oil spilling the bottle and slowly and gently pour the burned oil back into the bottle. I couldn't photograph this complex operation easily so you'll have to imagine it. I still spilled copious quantities of oil onto the towel but do your best.You may think you are pouring less oil into the containers than you got out. Remember the factory puts oil in bottles by weight not volume and you have probably spilled a fair bit here and there and some has been absorbed by the rags. if your engine is neither leaking nor smoking you are fine and your engine is probably not burning mass quantities of oil as you ride. Time to get geared up and ride.
Before you hit the highway, and take the burned oil to the recycling center in your saddlebags (you do use your motorcycle daily right?), start the engine and make sure the red oil pressure light goes out almost immediately. If it doesn't or the alarm pressure buzzer sounds stop the engine, and figure out the problem. The green neutral light should stay on otherwise the motorcycle in gear will roll forward and fall over.
Then put your pink Crocs to the foot pegs and go for a ride. 
This job shouldn't take more than 30 minutes if you do it slowly and methodically. It's very easy but if you screw up any small portion of it you risk wrecking the engine beyond repair so be thoughtful. Do not interrupt the job. Josh sent me a text message in the middle of this which I ignored, fearful I might miss a step along the way. And I have been feeling obliged to do this smelly greasy job on my motorcycles for the past four decades. On days like these I miss two strokes, and if you don't know why they don't have crankcase oil changes hit Wikipedia and find out. You'll be a better person for the knowledge, just like I am.
Years ago, frustrated by America's unwillingness to join the One World Government conspiracy I bought a Metrench tool kit off a television advertisement. In my defense my wife and I were planning the sailing trip of our lives and we were nervous as hell and unable to sleep so we stayed up late at night and assuaged our fears by buying things off the television. The tools in the kit have oddly shaped edges and cover both SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) measurements in fractions of an inch (arrrgh!) and metric sizes measured in individual millimeters (sweet!). 
I wasted hours looking for a gallon of Mobil One synthetic oil I bought at K-Mart on sale ages ago and have now lost. So I took off and picked up four quarts (American quarts are .946 of a liter so are essentially indistinguishable. If you want to know why Imperial and American measurements are different I will explain another time if you ask rudely) of Coastal synthetic. Hey man these are the Keys and you can't just bop out and expect to find Mobil oil at the Mobil gas station in Big Pine. I should have gone to the Mobil in Summerland but then I'd have been tempted by Dions Fried Chicken and that would have been the wrong kind of grease. 
29,000 miles ago I made my first change on my 865cc Bonneville twin and discovered it takes precisely four quarts with a new oil filter. I dropped in the last half quart very carefully, waiting 15 minutes to make sure I hadn't exceeded the oil level. And I found four quarts fit exactly...so nowadays I throw in four quarts and forget about shaving off a hundred centiliters here and there like the book says. In two years I have 31,000 miles and a nicely running engine. Works for me. 
First, park the motorcycle in a flat cement area which you won't mind spotting with used and fresh engine oil (flooding if you screw up and kick something by accident). Use the optional $250 Triumph center stand to make the job easier and less likely to drop the 500 pound machine on top of you. Whip out your 13mm box wrench (spanner) and stick it on the oil drain nut. If you are in this position facing the rear wheel pull the wrench towards you, hoping the last twat to tighten it up didn't overdo the job. Crack the nut and start to loosen it with your finger:If you are a namby pamby tort-lawyer-raised person or someone who worries about the viability of their testes or ovaries you might want to wear rubber/latex gloves to keep all petroleum products from giving you cancer. I am a rather more devil-may-care type of chap and go at this job bare handed with the inevitable result: my finger nails get a black rim to them for several days, despite my best cleaning endeavors. Oil gets everywhere:Make sure the collection tray is well in front of the hole...the warm oil will spurt quite a ways under pressure. A word about warming the oil. Most schools of thought agree that running the engine for five minutes to warm and circulate the oil is the best way to start this job. Some people, just to be perverse no doubt, think you should do the job cold to make sure any contaminants are in the bottom of the crankcase/oil tank. Me? I warm the engine, always have and always will not least because the oil runs more freely. Everywhere.I let my bike get a professional oil change every other time because the Bonneville gets a major tune up every 12,000 miles, including a general lubrication, valve clearance check and yes, an oil and filter change. So usually the nut is on good and tight and with my pansy little tools my meaty hands tend to get in the way. Viz the blood:So, we now have the warm oil draining into the pan, oil on the floor, and on my hands, a couple of oily rags with blood spatters as I try to a) get the carcinogenic oil particles directly into my bloodstream and b) use the oily rags to keep the dripping blood to a minimum. And let's not forget to remove the oil filler cap to allow the oil to drain faster and we hope more efficiently. In the Haynes manual they use a 50 pence coin because they are English. In the US and Canada you could use a quarter. At my impecunious house we use a screw driver.
While we wait for the old oil to drain we pass an oily rag over the bottom of the motorcycle, wiping off crud and checking nuts bolts and frame welds. We look at the plug with it's aluminum washer. You are supposed to change the little aluminum ring when you change the oil. I never have any to hand so I just stick the old one back on and forget about it. I expect the shop to replace it every other oil change and that should do. You can be as compulsive as you need on that one. Tra la tra la we wait and wait for the oil to finish draining...You could take the filter off now and perhaps speed it up but that makes an even bigger mess so I just wait and think about how valuable engine oil really is. It lubricates, which is to say it prevents moving metal parts from touching each other. If the piston ever actually touched the cylinder wall as it runs up and down the result would be what's known as seizing, usually with fatal results. The hot oil provides a film a millionth of a millimeter thick that prevents the parts from touching. Bearings do the same thing, spinning essentially in a very fine oil bath. All this at temperatures that would burn your hand were you to touch the oil. Oil washes the parts it lubricates and carries any stray dirt or particles to the filter, which like the human liver, washes the oil clean for it's return trip ( the liver washes the blood, we aren't supposed to have engine oil in our veins). So you need to change the oil on time if not sooner. Some weirdos make the claim that changing the oil too often doesn't allow it to break down and do it's job. Whatever. change it as often as you like as far as I'm concerned if you have the time and money to waste. The Bonneville is supposed to go an incredible 6,000 miles (10,000 kilometers) between changes. I can't last that long...In the good old days 3,000 miles was considered as long as you could go.Drip, drip, drip. Still waiting. Oil from diesel engines comes out looking completely black and some people think the color of the oil determines it's useful life. However if we remember that engine oil cools by lubricating we understand that the important part is not the color necessarily but the consistency. For fun (and to help the cancer along) you can rub the oil between your fingers and see if it feels like water or lubricious like oil. Remember too it needs to feel like a lubricant at a lot higher temperatures, and high temps like to break oil down, so even if the used oil feels like silk at these temperatures it is still probably time to change it.DO NOT FORGET TO PUT THE DRAIN PLUG BACK. Do it now, before you do anything else. Tighten it tight enough but don't overdo it. You'll feel it get snug, even if you don't have a torque wrench.Now we deal with the oil filter. If you don't have a filter skip this part. If you are intimidated by the filter change get comfortable changing the oil only and take the bike to the shop after a few thousand miles to have an early "proper" oil AND filter change. When the engine is new filter changes are important. As the engine gets old they remain important. Personally I'd rather get just the oil changed if that was all I could manage and leave the old filter in place. It will probably still do it's job just fine and fresh oil is a great good thing for the engine. If this job is new to you learn a little at a time and one day changing the filter will be as easy as draining the oil. Tools help.You can get filter wrenches that come with little straps you slide round the filter and pull to give greater leverage. They don't work for me as the filter is usually tucked up in a space that doesn't allow the strap and handle to maneuver. This universal wrench from Advanced Autoparts works nicely for me. As seen upside down, grab the filter and twist gently. It should break loose easily.
When it comes loose finish the job by (gloved) hand. Oil will run down the filter as the thing is a cup and may contain 250 milliliters (one quarter of a quart= a cup!? Oh, new world order where art thou?) which has to go somewhere. Hopefully you have spread an old towel under the bike and are lying comfortably as you grope. I bought my oil collection pan from Napa ("No Auto Parts Available") and it has a proper little hump in the middle. Thats the place you put the filter to allow it to drain.Gently push the pan aside and use an oil rag to catch the last drips from the filter housing. Push the pan gently, or cause a tidal wave and get oil EVERYWHERE. Now get your new filter, hopefully a Triumph original part because they are guaranteed to work with your bike, or if you live in the Keys or some other isolated place and your dealer recently closed you will make do with a fine, properly sized after market brand. Stick your (gloved) finger into a bottle of fresh oil...
...and apply it gently to create an oily film on the rubber gasket of the new filter.You can use burned oil if you want but what the hell, we have fresh oil to spare. It only takes light lubrication. This is to prevent the oil gasket from tearing when you screw the new filter on. If you forget to lubricate the gasket it may catch and tear and create an oil leak, and we don't want that. Immediately stick the filter back on, tighten by hand, and if your hand is greasy than wrap the filter in a less oily rag and keep turning the filter on it's housing. You will feel it get tight suddenly. Triumph kindly puts the filter under the engine on the Bonneville series. Some manufacturers put the filter where removal will drip oil everywhere. Some people prefer a hidden filter hoping it won't get hit by a rock when riding in gravel. Personally I like it just where it is. Everything about this oil change is easy.
Now you have the plug back in the engine, the filter is on hand tight and you have a funnel in the oil filler hole behind the right hand cylinder. Wedge the funnel with some rags else the weight of the oil will tip it over. Pour in four quarts, or if this is your first time pour in much of the fourth quart and keep adding gobs at the end and checking the little window to make sure it is at the right height. When you have it at the right height, put the cap on and run the engine. Let it sit for 15 minutes and see where the level is. This gets very tedious especially if you don't have a center stand. I chuck in the four quarts, replace the cap and clean up.
DO NOT THROW THE OLD OIL DOWN THE STORM DRAIN. Surely you know to recycle it? Some people may not know and if so they are best off leaving this whole operation to a professional. For the rest of us, take your empty bottles, prop them up with old towels to prevent the weight of the oil spilling the bottle and slowly and gently pour the burned oil back into the bottle. I couldn't photograph this complex operation easily so you'll have to imagine it. I still spilled copious quantities of oil onto the towel but do your best.You may think you are pouring less oil into the containers than you got out. Remember the factory puts oil in bottles by weight not volume and you have probably spilled a fair bit here and there and some has been absorbed by the rags. if your engine is neither leaking nor smoking you are fine and your engine is probably not burning mass quantities of oil as you ride. Time to get geared up and ride.
Before you hit the highway, and take the burned oil to the recycling center in your saddlebags (you do use your motorcycle daily right?), start the engine and make sure the red oil pressure light goes out almost immediately. If it doesn't or the alarm pressure buzzer sounds stop the engine, and figure out the problem. The green neutral light should stay on otherwise the motorcycle in gear will roll forward and fall over.
Then put your pink Crocs to the foot pegs and go for a ride. 
This job shouldn't take more than 30 minutes if you do it slowly and methodically. It's very easy but if you screw up any small portion of it you risk wrecking the engine beyond repair so be thoughtful. Do not interrupt the job. Josh sent me a text message in the middle of this which I ignored, fearful I might miss a step along the way. And I have been feeling obliged to do this smelly greasy job on my motorcycles for the past four decades. On days like these I miss two strokes, and if you don't know why they don't have crankcase oil changes hit Wikipedia and find out. You'll be a better person for the knowledge, just like I am. 
But now, now that the wrecker's ball, or local equivalent is on the way, this is when we wax sentimental and everyone wants to get their picture taken in front of the charmingly out-of-date facade. 
One can wax sentimental about the old place but the phoenix that promises to rise from these unpromising ashes should be really quite interesting. Again, according to the paper the new El Rancho scheduled to open late next year should be a model of environmental efficiency. The family that owns the place expect to get El Rancho ranked in the embarrassingly short list of environmentally friendly lodgings in the Keys, less than three dozen so far throughout Monroe County.
The new El Rancho promises more efficient insulation, extensive recycling of everything including water for toilets and irrigation as well as an innovation the Citizen took time to marvel at. The motel will have... "a high-tech system activated through room key-cards that will turn off lights and turn up air conditioners when visitors leave their rooms." Unhappily this piece of whiz bang modernity has been a staple in European hotels for donkey's years. You'd think the ecologically fragile Florida Keys would be ahead of the curve, but even today basic recycling is a thing of wonder around here, and controversy, still.
The swimming pool will be replaced by a salt water model and I am forced to wonder where the salt water will come from as this is anything but waterfront property.
And forty minutes away by Bonneville is my home nestled in the silent salt flats of the Outer Darkness of the far suburbs of Key West.
I have my own salt water pool on all sides of my little house and my off street parking is shaded to boot. It's good to be home after tasting the urban madness of Key West for another night of work.
I know nothing about golf so I decided to write an essay about the Key West Golf Course even though the golf course is as much a mystery to me as,say the joy of bungee jumping. For instance, I have no idea what this machine was doing, possibly fertilizing, possibly watering or some other entirely unrelated thing:
Whatever it was it took two men to accomplish, not forgetting the dog waiting in the shade of the golf cart:
I once worked with a man who was of a left leaning persuasion that made me look like a White Russian and when it became known that he liked to totter off on a weekend and play golf he became profoundly embarrassed. He stuttered, the first time I'd seen him do that, saying that he knew golf courses and all their chemicals are bad for the environment but he loved the game. I never begrudged him or anyone else a round of chasing a little white ball if that made him happy, but I still think it's a weird way to spend a precious portion of one's allotted time on earth.
It looks nice enough, a ride through the palm groves:
And those sandy bunkers are kept clean by eager staff, raking and that kind of thing, according to what I could see:
After one takes a little ride in the golf cart, easily avoiding any semblance of a walk or brisk exercise one stands around the balls and takes up a rather peculiar posture, bottom out, shoulders in and hands held forward in supplication. One's companion stands around like a guard overseeing the inmates at work: 
When I was a child golf was the sport of wealthy and privileged people,apparently that is no longer the case, at least not in Key West where they are very busy advertising for people to come in, throw down $35 for a cart and if necessary one can rent clubs as well. If I liked the sport it would seem like a bargain. This sign is prominent on the south side of the course along Highway One.
I parked my wife's Vespa ET4 alongside the course and wandered into the shrubbery that lines the fence. Looking back I could see the scooter and the all important Dion's fried chicken store behind it. That's because the Key West Golf Course is on Stock Island, but mysteriously enough it is inside the city. That would be because years ago the city annexed north Stock Island to allow the golf course to be built along with some homes in a splendid new gated community. Nowadays the north lane of Highway One and all the land north of it around College Road is in the city.
The Monroe County Sheriff's Office has an agreement with the city to patrol this area and they are responsible for the trees and bushes lining the golf course, a place where people are fond of hanging out and camping. A very pleasant spot it is too. 
And the golfers continue to beaver away out in the sun:
Across the course one can see the "Key West style" homes built by developer Pritam Singh who is also responsible for similar housing in Truman Annex and he also recreated these style of homes in Tranquility Bay in Marathon. I've seen these places offered for rent for better than $2,000 a month in the newspaper. My wife and I considered buying a few years ago when we were looking, but the strictures of the gated community thing and the lack of salt water access put us off. The short drive to Key West tended to increase the value of the properties and we weren't that interested. And of course we don't play golf... 
The kids get their audience from their families and when they are playing football the local residents of the park get pushed out. I guess sit takes a football game for the families to reclaim the park! 