Recently I've been discussing with friends what I usually do on the weekend.  My weekend isn't completely work and it isn't completely play, but I guess my favorites are the ones where I do a bit of both and just see where it goes.

First, I'll go over what's not my ideal weekend.  I guess I'm not that outdoorsy of a person that I want to be outdoors the whole weekend.  I do know people who almost need to be outdoors to relax and they seem to love to have a weekend away from everything at the cabin.  But I definitely find that to be a waste of my weekend - there's just too much downtime with nothing to do, unless there's a good book to read, although I can't really read a good book for more than a couple hours at a time.

You see, to be in the web programming industry, you need to be constantly learning.  I often spend an hour or two reading up on blogs from friends mixed with blogs about industry news and trends and occasionally pick up a heavier programming book.  I also work a bit on a web programming project for myself or maybe another learning/improvement project related to administrating my server or getting things set up more robustly.  (Maybe one of these weeks I'll get Git set up on my computer.)

Of course, the weekend needs a bit of fun.  First of all, whenever projects are going on, there is plenty of great music to listen to at a reasonable (or loud) volume.  If learning or working on a project is not going well, I'll take a break and watch a show on Hulu or from a podcast I subscribe to.  Also, most Friday nights and at least a couple hours of Saturday and Sunday have to be some sort of activity hanging out with friends or family.

Of course, this type of weekend is not as fun as spending the weekend in Chicago, going to a MuteMath concert or a cookout at the parent's house, but it is definitely a favorite mode of a weekend.  I feel like I have accomplished some of my personal projects and had fun in the process.  Of course, I expect your weekend to be a bunch different.  What's your favorite way to spend time out of the office?