Get the coffee in. Cancel the trans-Saharan expedition. Be prepared to lose friends. Buy books if you like reading books, but be aware that no book can really give the grand picture. It's all free, especially if you're prepared to run Java.
Most software comes with demos.
Run them till you really understand what happening. Read the specs. There are geeks who can learn everything from a spec - I'm not one. But much of what you need is in the spec. They are sometimes dense.