Grimetime, no need to feel intimidated. I too, came to K-bikes late in life after many years of wrenching on bikes and cars. While the Bricks have a reputation for heavy engineering, in reality they are really pretty easy to work on for a couple of reasons.
First, is that they use a lot of automotive technology which, once all the electrical connections are cleaned of the years of crud, is pretty reliable and maintenance free.
Second, outside of the air filter, which, by the way, should be good for at least 50,000 miles, nearly all of the required maintenance items are relatively easy to do because of the engine layout. The nastiest jobs are the splines, but they can be done in a couple hours.
Third, the basic engine should be good for at least 200,000 miles and the few jobs that may have to be done like clutch o-rings, and cam chains have a lot of reference material with tips and advice on the internet.
Fourth, nearly all the routine maintenance can be done with the bike's tool kit, and the big jobs only need a few additional tools to accomplish. There are factory service manuals on line that can be downloaded to augment the good Clymer manual. Also, because the bikes have been around so long, there are many on the web here as well on other sires that have a lot of experience with them, experience that they are happy to share with newbies.
I have found with my bricks that the ratio of miles to maintenance is very high, which is not surprising, given the reputation of these bikes. A couple of weekend afternoons in the off season working in the garage yields a season of trouble free riding the following summer regardless of the miles on the odometer. Case in point, my K100RS was a daily commuter bike, doing just over 100 miles a day with a total of 124,000 miles on the clock.