I like to tinker when I can. Exploring UI concepts, learning new skills.
In 2017 I started to transition from years of traditional PHP-based templating and client-side jQuery to a more modern JavaScript stack. Along the way I made a few applets to explore ideas and try things out, and towards the end of that process I spoke at a meetup about my learning experience.
Sometimes my side projects don't make it out of the build stage, but I enjoy spending time brainstorming how an app or interface might work.