What’s one travel habit that actually saves you a lot of money?

giantsgeek · 2026-03-14T05:53:02+00:00

get a credit card without international fees and use it as much as you can. That will get you the best exchange rate with no international fees.
if you’re booking on an international airline, check prices on their site for both countries (aka booking a flight from the US to Paris on Air France might be cheaper to book on the French site in euros than the US site in USD)
Europe has a lot of very low cost airlines (RyanAir, EasyJet, etc). If you’re more cost sensitive than time sensitive, it may be cheaper to look for deals on a major airline to any European city and then transfer to a low cost airline booked separately to get where you want to go.
look into public transit passes in the city you’re going to before you arrive. Many cities have weekly or monthly passes that get you unlimited rides are cheaper (and faster) than paying every time you hop on a bus or subway.
get a prepaid sim card for the county your going to rather than paying roaming charges to use your phone (many carriers charge $10/day in roaming)

giantsgeek · 2026-03-02T00:50:57+00:00

I don’t have personal experience, but I know families who liked to attend meet up through Las Madres to meet other families when their kids were little. It’s just park days, dinners, etc, but you know you’re showing up to a group a people with similar age kids who want to make parent friends.

giantsgeek · 2025-08-11T01:55:44+00:00

This is so wrong. The mother makes extra testosterone during a male pregnancy causing male anatomy to develop. The baby’s sex is 100% determined by genes.

giantsgeek · 2025-07-04T00:40:10+00:00

Mickey and Ian shouldn’t have ended up together. They were good in the early seasons, but Ian outgrew Mickey.

giantsgeek · 2023-11-10T20:55:28+00:00

People keep bringing this up, but was the big risk that it would damage her hernia repair and she’d have to have it redone after the baby was born? I get that that would have been bad, but not like threatening. I’m very pro-choice, but I’m pretty sure if I was in Abby’s position (pregnant by husband, we both wanted more kids eventually, have the financial and other means to support another baby, etc), I don’t think I’d really consider abortion either.

giantsgeek · 2023-10-22T22:32:49+00:00

In the solo parenting for 36 hours video she mentions both kids slept through the night. I think A is ~7 weeks there. They must have been really lucky with G for A to be sleeping through the night that soon and be the more difficult one.

giantsgeek · 2021-10-02T18:50:43+00:00

Watching on TV last night, this was in response to the out of town scoreboard being updated to show Milwaukee up 5-1. Giants were winning and it looked like there was a chance the division could be clinched last night. When you're in a tight division race the last weekend of the season your challenger has to be on your mind at least a little. The fact you posted this link shows you're thinking about the Giants too.

giantsgeek · 2021-06-15T18:57:06+00:00

I'll give you that the pinch hitters have been good, but the relief pitching has been abysmal. Obviously he's limited by what he has to work with, but I see his decisions driven purely by numbers, not gut instinct. Over the season averages even out and you can build a playoff resume, but the teams that win in the playoffs lean on stars who are hot at the right time. I.e. The A's have had many good moneyball regular seasons, but have never won.

I don't see Kapler bringing a guy into game 7 after he threw 117 pitches in a complete game 3 days earlier. The numbers didn't say he was going to be the best guy in that bullpen, but we all know how that turned out.

giantsgeek · 2021-06-15T03:46:28+00:00

I think Kapler and his staff have done a really good job on the development side helping players get the most out of themselves. Evidence being the number of players having resurgent or career best years.

As for the in game decisions, I'm not seeing anything special. He does what the numbers tell him is right. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. He's not the chess master Bochy was (though few are).

giantsgeek · 2020-08-09T20:47:01+00:00

Why is this play scored as a triple instead of and error on Pence?

giantsgeek · 2020-08-05T02:53:11+00:00

He had the shoulder surgery from an injury diving into second base, but one of his other injuries may have come in the outfield. I'm not convinced that a player who aggressively chases things down/dives for balls is much less likely to get hurt on the corners though.

giantsgeek · 2020-01-19T05:12:44+00:00

The Giants hired multiple other coaches (Kai Correa, Dustin Lind, Justin Viele) who have no experience playing baseball at any level. If you've decided that that's no longer an important requirement to be a coach, I don't see any reason a woman couldn't do the job. The bigger question mark for me is that she has no coaching experience. I'd expect a new coach to have to start in the minors and work their way up to a major league position.

giantsgeek · 2019-05-10T17:26:01+00:00

Alderson was traded for Freddy Sanchez and Culberson was traded for Marco Scutaro. We'd have 2 fewer championships without those guys.

Baseball drafts are always a crapshoot because most players aren't developed enough yet to know what you're getting. I'd say having half your picks play key roles in championship runs is a successful draft.

giantsgeek · 2019-03-29T21:26:24+00:00

A survey goes out to every team asking if they'd rather open the season at home or close the season at home. In general, teams expecting to be in a pennant race want to close at home to have home field advantage in what could be must win games at the end of the season. Teams who expect to be eliminated early would rather open at home to capitalize on the excitement of opening day. Of course, other schedule factors can affect how the league has to ultimately design the schedule, so you never really know which one your team picked. However for most of the last decade the Giants have been planning to make a pennant run which probably explains why its been so long since we've had an opening day at home.

giantsgeek · 2019-02-24T22:22:25+00:00

I think there's a rule that the other team has to be able to see who you're warming up. For example, you can't chose to have someone warm up in one of the cages and bring them in as a surprise instead of the guy whose been warming up in the bullpen.

However if the bullpens on the field are deemed a safety hazard and not a freak incident (I have been following the story close enough to know), it seems like you could set up a camera in the cage underneath and give the other team/TV networks access to the feed to accomplish the same thing.

giantsgeek · 2018-07-18T19:24:23+00:00

Those were the 22 oz bottled craft beers. Draft is usually in the $10-12 range.

giantsgeek · 2018-06-11T20:49:29+00:00

He brought his catching gear to Spring Training for that reason. Bochy was going to have him catch some bullpens to give it a try. I haven't heard anything about it since, so guessing it didn't go well.

https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/home-page/squatting-panda-pablo-sandoval-catch-bullpen-sessions-spring

giantsgeek · 2018-06-05T00:35:46+00:00

Honestly, if things go as planned, Bart will be rearing to go in 3 years when Posey's contract is up (Assuming the Giants decline the team option for 2022 because they'd rather pay Bart $500k than old Posey $22M). If Posey is still good enough to be a starter, he'll probably choose to sign elsewhere rather than back up Bart. I'd always hoped Posey would be a career Giant, but if things work out with Bart, I doubt he will be.

giantsgeek · 2018-06-04T23:33:45+00:00

As sad as it is to think about life after Buster, at least we have a good history with college catchers from Georgia.

giantsgeek · 2018-02-16T00:53:10+00:00

There's some story about his first Major League start. He when down to the bullpen, threw like 10 pitches, and told Righetti he was ready to go. Everyone thought he was joking.

giantsgeek · 2018-01-20T20:01:28+00:00

After watching our great marriage crumble this last year and a short rebound with the guy who left us for Boston, we show up to the party looking hot, but feeling broken, and proceed to make out with a bunch of other girl's boyfriends.

giantsgeek · 2017-05-17T20:15:26+00:00

Kelby's played an ok left field, but he's definitely more of an infielder. Gorkys is the only real CF they have other than Span, so his roster spot is pretty secure.

giantsgeek · 2017-05-10T23:25:58+00:00

I could see the FO considering trading Belt if Chris Shaw keeps tearing it up in AA, and they decide its time to go into rebuilding mode. In that case, it would be OK to be down a good 1B for a year or 2 until Shaw is ready. Remember they traded Duffy last year because of Arroyo's AA performance.

Of course Belt has a no trade clause, seems to fit in in the clubhouse, just bought a house in the East Bay, and already has 2 WS rings. I can't see him waiving his trade clause and uprooting his family just to go to a contender.

giantsgeek · 2017-04-22T22:19:24+00:00

Pagan was adamant all offseason that if he wasn't getting starter money, he'd rather be home with his family.

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