I've learned over the past 30+ years in the tumultuous world of real estate investing that during the down times, it has been the best times.

I would encourage you to continue with dedicating your downtime to learning as much as you can, building up some capital with a job while you learn, and obtain some kind of business plan to get started.

Have money set aside to protect you from "downtimes" and you will make money in real estate.  

A dear friend passed along “Rich Dad Poor Dad” as well as a BiggerPockets REI book, and I feel like I’ve been bitten by a bug- I am now turning my down time into education time, absorbing as much as I can- books, podcasts, YouTube videos...

I was wondering if anyone had any experience with "triplexing" a single family residence, I wanted to know what some best practices are when doing so, such as whether separate meters will be worth the added cost, what is the down time between permits and construction and lastly what is the actual cost.

Being on the road for that long, I had a lot of downtime and figured I could use that time for growth.  

If an investor wants to buy it, I'll give them time to line up a tenant so they won't have excessive downtime after closing.Another way to sell:  Roofstock is a platform that people can sell their rented houses. 

The rehab has a downtime of 4 months to complete.

In addition, carpeting is much faster and cheaper to install which means less down time potentially in an apartment. 

I also recently worked for a major bank, so that helped me get closer to understanding real estate loans and help consume all of the knowledge I could from their education platform during down time at the branch.