>>>>>>I may be out of date but the home business deduction used to be a major gotcha. If nothing else it is an audit red flag. Even though I don't cheat on my taxes I decided not to go near it.
>>>>>
>>>>>I've been taking home business deduction since the late 80's. Never been audited despite the fact that our income swings wildly from year to year.
>>>>>
>>>>>I think you're mixing the deduction for a home-based business with the deduction for a home office for someone who works elsewhere. The latter is much harder to support.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I did mean the home office deduction. Good catch.
>>>>
>>>>Did you watch Paul Ryan last night? I was impressed. Some of my liberal friends have alerted me that his pants were on fire a couple of times but he made a very strong impression IMO.
>>>
>>>No, I only heard a couple of minutes of it. I went to the ballgame last night, didn't get home until 11ish.
>>>
>>
>>I saw a headline that Hamels didn't start. What happened?
>
>Hamels had some kind of intestinal thing. Unspecified, but I'm assuming just a stomach bug or a touch of food poisoning. (He has a couple of little kids at home, so ...)
>
>Instead, Tyler Cloyd, named International League Most Valuable Pitcher for 2012 earlier in the week, made his ML debut. Shaky for the first three innings, but then three very solid innings. Total 6 innings, 3 runs. Not bad. Unfortunately, the Phillies only scraped together 2 runs themselves.
>
>
>>
>>The Brewers are finally playing well. Too little, too late.
>
>The Phillies had a lot of years like that just before this recent run of success.
>

I had the rare chance to watch the Brewers play yesterday since they were in town to play the Cubs. The wind was blowing out and it was a wild one. Francisco Rodriguez, one of the Brewers' two alleged closers, came in to start the 9th with an 11-9 lead and turned it into a 12-11 loss. The bullpen, which was one of their strengths last year, has been a disaster. I didn't expect them to have another year like last year -- that was their magic season -- but this has been dismal. About the only enjoyment I get from them is that Braun is having another stellar season.