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.