Ask HN: What do you do when you're not working/programming?

I also live in the Bay Area (SF). Here's a small sampling of things I do when I'm not working:

* Write. Every weekday morning, I go to a coffee shop downtown and write for 30-60 minutes. I've written two full-length novels and two novellas so far, though they are all as-of-yet unpublished. Someday...

* Run. I run 3-4 nights per week, either along Embarcadero or through Golden Gate Park. I started off with the Couch to 5K program in January 2012 and I've worked up to four half-marathons in the last 12 months.

* Disc golf. There's a disc golf course in Golden Gate Park. Grab a beginner set (20 bucks from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Innova-Disc-Golf-3-Disc-Colors/dp/B000...), grab a friend, and go play. It's super fun.

* Nerd Nite. http://sf.nerdnite.com - 8 bucks. It's like the Discovery Channel -- with beer! (Side note: it's also where I met my girlfriend, and I go every month.)

* Rock climbing - check out Planet Granite (http://www.planetgranite.com/) or Mission Cliffs (http://www.touchstoneclimbing.com/mission-cliffs)

* Meetups - I've attended a dozen Meetups, including the SF Rust meetup. Very fun way to meet new people.

* Biking - Go to Roaring Mouse bikes in Crissy Field (http://www.roaringmousecycles.com/) and buy a bike. Then bike to work, bike to Golden Gate Park, bike across the GG bridge to Sausalito, to Tiburon, to Marin. There are a million awesome places to bike in the Bay Area, and there are huge communities around it. It's something you can do by yourself or with a group. Super fun.

* Anything from sf.funcheap.com. Like the site says, it's a list of fun, cheap things to do in the Bay Area.

* Take online classes (http://coursera.org). I'm currently taking the Machine Learning course and the Compilers course. It's very fun to learn new things!

* Become a Stormtroooper (http://www.goldengategarrison.com) - I'm not a member, but I know a lot of people who build their own Stormtrooper armor and then do volunteer activities with the 501st (the official Stormtrooper organization). Very cool way to give back to the community, especially if you're a Star Wars geek!

* Volunteer! There's a great organization in the city called One Brick (http://sfbay.onebrick.org/). You basically pick an event and just show up. It's volunteering a la carte! You're not making long term commitments -- just one event at a time. And you meet TONS of good, kind-hearted people. It's a win/win!

* And being Hacker News, I would be remiss if I didn't mention: start your own business. Find a problem domain you know something about, and solve that problem. Get out there, meet some co-founders, crank out some code, save the world, and get the cheerleader. Or maybe it was save the cheerleader? Whatever.

* And so much more. I do all of the above things regularly (sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly), but there are a huge list of things I just don't have the time or memory to mention. There's a whole world out there. Get outside and explore!

Good luck!

This was a really complete answer. Just to not repeat and complete it with a couple of new things:

-You might get some interesting and fun things in here: California Academy of Sciences and The Exploratorium. Every Thursdays they have special events.

-This is another website where you can find something: http://www.sfweekly.com/

If you want to socialize www.meetup.com (already told by Jemaclus) is great. You can also organize or find meetups to programme instead of programme alone for example. There are meetups for whatever think you want to think, so just try some of them until you find something and some people you like!

I just realized how depressing it is that I live in Chicago instead of SF as a tech professional.

With that said, comprehensive list. Even though I can't use it, I think it highlights some great activities SFBA HN readers would enjoy.

Get started on the classics. As a very strong general rule, they're classics for a reason. Some of them can be read in a single long sitting ("The Great Gatsby" springs to mind for that). Old and modern; the British author David Mitchell has written some fist-bitingly good modern literature. Branch out; some modern Japanese literature is so good it carries through the translation.

If you can, get them in second-hand paperback - carry them, bend them, flick back and forth through them, mark them up with a stub of pencil. They're so good. They really are. Thankfully, they're also something that can't be hacked, pivoted, presented as a service, gameified or whatever other buzz phrases we churn out to make ourselves feel smug. There's no other way to read them than to simply open the book and read.

Thank you :)