When I was just THINKING about learning to ride I spent a lot of time searching around about motorcycles, choosing a used bike, how to shift and clutch, what is a good starter bike, how to wash, and as above, how to winterize your bike.
There are lots of sites, but this is the first one I came across and I found it easy to understand and informative.
Here's a checklist link I found, too!
http://motorcycleinfo.calsci.com/StorageList.html
Hope some of this is helpful for you...but I don't WANT to think about winter storage yet!! :(