Tales from a DIY mechanic: How I tried to do a valve adjustment and spent 3 hours fishing half a pencil out of my cylinder

This just happened today and I thought it might give someone a laugh in these dark times.I decided to do the first valve adjustment on my DR650 and right off the bat the flywheel access port in the magneto cover was completely seized and the hex socket chowdered instantly. I thought, "no biggie, I'll replace that later and just spin the rear wheel to get the bike in TDC". All good except that it was hard to look through the inspection port and turn the wheel at the same time. I'd read about people using a dowel though the spark plug hole to help gauge the piston height and a pencil should work fine, right? RIGHT?Wrong. I drop the pencil in and start turning the rear wheel when I hear a "CRUNCH". Oh fuck. As the piston came up it jammed the pencil sideways in the hole and snapped it in half with the lower half dropping down into the cylinder.3 hours later after some slight panicking, a couple drinks, and a bunch of dicking around with dental picks and a piece of wire I managed to fish it out. Luckily the DR has two spark plugs so I could stick my POS usb borescope into one and fish around through the other.Moral of the story: don't stick pencils in your cylinder I guess? Picture of the little bastard. via /r/motorcycles https://www.reddit.com/r/motorcycles/comments/fqvkq8/tales_from_a_diy_mechanic_how_i_tried_to_do_a/?utm_source=ifttt