Actually it wasn't a headache since I bought the new battery. Looking back on the thread, I thought I had mentioned this, but apparently did not.
After my actual last post, I don't remember how much longer later exactly, but I think it was within a week, I left it on the charger all night planning to take it out the next day. It was still sub freezing temps then. I got ready to go and it wasn't starting. I went to put the new battery in then, but as I got to my battery, I noticed this:
View attachment 93160
Correct me if I'm wrong, but things tend to work better if they are put together properly, no?

I don't know how I missed it, but I know when I did. I was fiddling with my SAE wire wondering why I kept popping a fuse every time I hooked my clips to it and the clips to a charger. The anwer to that was, the clips aren't meant to be hooked up to the bike side. They are meant to be hooked to the charger side only, so in effect I was putting positive to negative in a complete circuit.
I figured that out and put almost everything back together except for that ground cable there, because really, how important is that, and got by on luck pretty much. (really, who does that?)
Once I saw that and put that back on, I didn't have a problem until the other day. 85 degrees out and just rode back 6 hours prior and still didn't have a charge is as good an indicator the battery has had enough as any.