Need a project

First, for those who may not already know, I am NOT a Java programmer. I am learning the language for my own purposes (
Along with Ruby, XML, Perl and Groovy).

I have sucessfully written a Java program which parses an XML file and am using it in my job. I am a technical support person, who specializes in printing systems, namely the way that our systems (HPUX and SunOS) interface with a print server running Easyspooler and Infoprint Manager.

With that in mind, I think I am ready for a project. However, the closest thing I can come up with on my own, as anyone who has read any of my previous threads can tell, is some form of real world modelling. I am *not* convinced that this would be benefical to me as a learning experience.

So let me elaborate on what I have been studying.
I am familiar with classes, interfaces, packages and polymorphism, although interfaces and polymorphism are still somewhat foreign to me. I know a little bit about interfacing with Oracle and MySQL and have done a very rudimentary JSP page which talks to an Oracle database.

Since I have no current projects in my job which require me to do any kind of Java programming (I came up with the XML parser as satisfying a need I had) I am looking for some suggestions.

I have made my way through some of Eckle's book (and even have had an email from him). I have worked my way through the first portion of the Sun Java Tutorial. I've studied the Horstmann books (text for a class I took in Java) and, my favorite, Head First Java.

I would like to do something with what I have learned. I'm not ready for GUI programming yet, nor do I want something trivial. Perhaps someone out there has written something along the lines of what I am looking for and would be willing to share with me the requirements for what they did. From the requirements, I can do a Use-Case and UML diagrams and from there, get to the coding.

*Remember* I come from a procedural language (COBOL) background and have done very little OOP aside from SAS (does anyone remember SAS) and some Delphi, so please, be gentle. A simple project is all I am looking for. I'm not going to market it and I'm not going to post my code here looking for suggestions on how to clean it up.


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