I confess that I spend my free time hacking around on my machine
after I'm done hacking around at work. I agree that learning is
an ongoing thing, and I enjoy learning new things about computers,
and especially Perl. I'm still somewhat of a Perl newbie, but I
figure the only way to reach merlyn-esque Perl skills is to work
with it as much as possible, and try new stuff with it. Perlmonks
is the best resource I've got after the Camel Book.
Rest assured that you're not alone in your after hours tinkering.