What would be the best ways to familiarize myself with construction process, while still maintaining my W-2 job? 

(My next visit being Jan 22 - Feb 4)My full time job... 

First of all, great job.

Your job will be to find an investor-friendly brokerage willing to teach.

Quote from @Lexi Lehman: Quote from @Derrick Lewis: I use TurboTenant for their other features (and tenants submit maintenance requests there), but haven't seen anything about a partnership with Lula until now.Lula doesn't cost anything for the property manager as a subscription normally, you just pay on a per-job basis.

The job market is tight here in Lake County right now.

I'm not sure if we can like to articles on our own websites here, so to be safe I'll just suggest the IRS web page, which does do a pretty good job of explaining the basics: https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc510The main thing to know if you're going to claim business miles is that you do need to keep a log of every business trip. 

They have have done a great job outlining all the possible things that can go wrong and what  can go right.  

It would be best to befriend a local contractor or even help one out on a job to see any differences from your past eight years doing it in another country.

You did an excellent job summarizing your experience.