I didn't find I got a great deal of ownership satisfaction out of a BF, but I was just ramping up when I bought it: you might consider studying for and getting your ham technicians license: it's the easiest and you'll learn some things along the way.
Presuming you have an actual computer available _somewhere_, you don't want to fool around with programming the thing by hand, as therein lies madness.
- If you have the baofeng programming cable, that's all you need.
- This is the one I got for $20, but there is a $10 one that I decided I didn't want to trust, but it might be fine, no clue.
- Download the Chirp Software. There's a troubleshooting instructions page specifically about the bf.
- Using Chirp, Import from Stock Config the FRS/GMRS channels and whatever else looks interesting (but remember, there's only 120 memory spaces or so, but chirp doesn't know that).
- Iirc, without being a licensed amateur, I think one can make a case that transmitting on GMRS channels is not entirely illegal, and nobody has gotten in actual trouble for using it as an FRS radio, but, outside of an actual emergency, transmitting pretty much everything else is.
- Go to repeaterbook.com and look at the 2m and 70cm lists for repeaters in your area. Plug the frequency, offset (usually default), and tones into Chirp. Various nets are active, generally at the top of the hour, during the week evenings and more on the weekend.
- Also, you can plug in your nearest national weather service. Mine is 162.475, the others are also in the 162 range
Next thing you'll want is a better antenna, something like
this or even (if you're only ever doing things from home)
this (but you'll also need line and an adapter and do some mounting, the higher the better). After an antenna upgrade, about the next thing to do is get a better unit for what you really want to do: the BF radios don't do anything well, but are cheap and do a number of things poorly. There are probably better options depending on what you want to do, like scanners or even an SDR and a decent antenna (like the abovementioned discone).
Oh, and a tip: if you do have a second radio, be wary of putting a baofeng on the recharger while trying to use the other radio. It manages to emit tons of noise, completely jacks up the receive of my actual HF radio. It probably interferes with itself.