All but two I structured 70% me and 30% of equity to contractor, he even put up money for materials etc.

You don't need to pay thousands of dollars for a course and the professor's latest edition of the textbook to master the material. 

I have a couple of friends that attend meet-ups - I'll have to start attending more with them.I'm trying my best to keep myself occupied with REI material anytime I have down time.

I believe that is mainly to keep stains from potentially seeping into the porous material that granite is. 

There was just one BIG problem that I hadn’t anticipated…One of my banks, at which my personal unsecured credit line is 40k, suddenly was no longer offering the 0% interest balance transfer promotion!

Grab the "book on estimating rehab costs" from this site and then side by side material costs at Lowes/Home Depot.

The course and materials to get license is going to run me about $4-500 and about 12 hours of study and testing.

That is it, and he has a lot of money in materials. 

I discovered BP through the podcast, which led me to a lot of material to listen and read through.

I would start with some of the educational material here on BP in order to get answers to those questions and the many others you will encounter!