Ken,
I miss the problem solving and the camaraderie of the work place.
1) Find a problem you want to solve, that doesn't have a good solution yet, perhaps hasn't been solved, or has been tackled by a Linux project and you are curious about. Be open to learning more. 2) Check out www.sourceforge.net, which is the repository for open source projects, and search for the projects you might like to contribute. Join their mailing list, look at the pending tasks, and lurk a while to find out how the project is organized. 3) Match your interests and talents with the pending projects and try something that you tackle easily. Confirming or finding a bug (the projects usually have publicly available bug lists) is a good way to start. Maybe you are good at documentation - usually there are many areas where you can contribute - it's also a great way to learn. 4) Once you are confident enough, download the source code and start fixing bugs and suggesting enhancements. Best of luck. Many Linux-based projects need people with your talents. Ira