Yep, another one:

Doctors say they have never seen anything like it: A window washer who fell 47 stories from the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper is now awake, talking to his family and expected to walk again.

Alcides Moreno, 37, plummeted almost 500 feet in a December 7 scaffolding collapse that killed his brother.

Somehow, Moreno lived, and doctors at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center announced Thursday that his recovery has been astonishing.

He has movement in all his limbs. He is breathing on his own. And on Christmas Day, he opened his mouth and spoke for the first time since the accident.

Somehow he lived? Uh, pardon me, but has anyone considered it just might be the loving arms of Baby Jesus that caught the falling lamb and set him softly on the ground below?

Sure, sure, “softly” might be a relative term…

Dr. Herbert Pardes, the hospital’s president, described Moreno’s condition when he arrived for treatment as “a complete disaster.”

Both legs and his right arm and wrist were broken in several places. He had severe injuries to his chest, his abdomen and his spinal column. His brain was bleeding. Everything was bleeding, it seemed.

Soft, indeed, like a whispered “I love you” on a warm, salty ocean breeze. Snuggles the Bear soft, even.

His wife, Rosario Moreno, cried as she thanked the doctors and nurses who kept him alive.

“Thank God for the miracle that we had,” she said. “He keeps telling me that it just wasn’t his time.”

It was his time, however, for 24 units of blood transfusions, plasma, platelets, pro-clotting and anti-hemorrhaging drugs, a brain catheter, a nifty scar down his abdomen to relieve pressure, a tracheotomy, assisted breathing, and nine orthopedic operations.

And, I’m just guessing here, lots of prayer.

But, um, also 24 units of blood transfusions, plasma, platelets, pro-clotting and anti-hemorrhaging drugs, a brain catheter, a nifty scar down his abdomen to relieve pressure, a tracheotomy, assisted breathing, and nine orthopedic operations.

I’m sure one was just as important as the other.

Science may never be able to explain what protected Moreno when the platform he and his brother were using atop an Upper East Side apartment tower broke free and fell to the ground.

Edgar Moreno, 30, of Linden New Jersey, died instantly. He was buried in Ecuador, where the brothers are from.

My bet for why Baby Jesus didn’t catch the brother? He only has two arms (note: that’s the scientific explanation). He’s not Kali or Cthulhu, you know!

Being serious for a moment, Moreno’s survival is amazing, certainly. His living through the initial case of rapid deceleration was a lucky break, and his continued survival is a testament to the amazing dedication and skill of the EMTs, doctors, and nurses who tended to his shattered body. Here’s hoping he makes a full recovery and return to his wife and children.

As for it being a miracle? Nah. A miracle would have been the scaffolding breaking away from its supports and floating down down down to the ground ground ground like a feather, lost from the wing of a cute baby bird making its first earnest efforts at flight.

But God’s never been one for being, you know, showy.

Except for all the people making and smiting and smoting and salt pillaring and planet flooding and bush burning*.

That was then; this is now. These days he goes for the more subtle miracles that look as if no miracle actually took place.

Clever!

*…bloodletting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle, light a votive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh, this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.

Yes, I know it’s really “book burning” in the song. Shut up.

It seems a lot of fellow Ford Fusion owners are Googling and finding this post about the Fusion I wrote in December 2007, mainly because they have questions about winter tires (and MP3 aux jacks, but that’s another post).

My advice: if you live somewhere with snow and ice, buy them.

Winter tires, not all-season tires.

Keep your 17-inch performance tires on in the summer, and then swap out at the first snowfall for some nice winter tires. I had a bit of sticker shock plonking down nearly $700 for mine, but my drive this winter has been easy (compared to last winter when I had to do running starts from the other side of the street just to get up my snowy driveway). I’m told they should last 4-5 seasons, so it’s not that expensive on a yearly basis.

Cheaper than sliding off the highway anyway.

CNN is reporting that Obama and Huckabee lead for their respective parties in the Iowa caucuses.

If this holds true through the night, I am that much closer to just digging a hole in the ground and hiding there until America regains some clarity of thought.

Irrelevant side note: for the longest time, my Brit wife mispronounced Iowa as “eye-OH-uh.” I still think she has to put a Herculean mental effort into not doing so whenever she says it. Perhaps I shall engage her in an exciting discussion about tonight’s vote just to amuse myself.

Wow, that’s a dumb thing to do and say:

At lunchtime in downtown Boston after Christmas, the streets were thick with people dashing around to stores and going out to eat. Leah Volpe was carrying a shopping bag in one hand. And she was about to do something that might make her financial planner quit in protest — she’s pulling out money from her 401(k) so she can go to Bermuda on vacation.

“I’m going to enjoy myself,” she says “I’m only 31 so I don’t really care about retirement yet.”

That’s because you’re not very bright, dear.

If you invested your $1200 for the next 34 years at an 8% return, it would be worth over $18,000*.

At a 10% return, an assumed stock market average, it would be worth over $35,000.

If you did even better and managed to earn 12% per year, you’d have over $69,000 at age 65, without having ever added another penny.

Naturally, you’d be adding a lot of other pennies along the way, unless Bermuda beckoned you to bronze your bosoms and buns every Boston winter.

More:

Here’s an example: If you start saving $300 a month — or $3,600 a year — when you’re 25, and earn an 8.5 percent annual return and reinvest your earnings, that money will be worth $1,064,457 when you’re 65.

But if you wait until you’re 35 to start saving the same amount, you’ll only have $447, 173. If you wait until you’re 45 you’ll have even less — $174,000. Think about that. If you start when you’re 25, you’re saving for just twice as long, but earning more than eight times as much money.

The reasoning skills of such people are the single, best argument against privatizing Social Security. Don’t get me wrong: I would love to have all of my share of FICA back to invest as I see fit for my own future. However, I fear that if that were the case, I fear I might be hit with an even bigger burden toward the end of my years when the government sees fit to bail out those who could save, but did not do so.

And you know it would (heck, did you sign up for a bad mortgage deal because you thought you could work at Winn-Dixie and afford a $500,000 house with no money down and 100% financing? Well, you’re an idiot and Uncle Sam gonna come make it all better now baby).

Meanwhile, I’m 36 years old and (currently, stock market gods be honored and praised) on track to retire at age 65 with nearly $2 million. However, I’ve never been to Bermuda, so I guess Leah has that on me.

Shorter version: save for your retirement. The sooner the better. Because I would rather, given the choice, support those who really could not afford to save much rather than those who blew it all on cabana boys.

Depending on the investment calculator you use, you will get different results based upon when it the investment is compounded, when contributions are counted, etc. Regardless, the lesson is the same: don’t take money out of your 401(k) for stupid stuff.

Aye, Mrs. O’Malley, your wee babby here does have a severe case of the infant reflux with attendant rashes and an overall failure to thrive.

A pity, to be sure.

But never you mind, m’dear, as surely it will clear right up before he’s even eight years old.

Patients can be waiting up to eight years to see a consultant in a hospital outpatient clinic, new figures show. The figures obtained by The Irish Times show some 48 patients who were waiting to be seen in the outpatient department of Mayo General Hospital earlier this year had been on the waiting list since 1999.

Awesome.

Where do we sign up for such wonders of the modern medical world?

(found via Walter, who - it turns out - did not die and quit blogging for months upon months, but was instead waiting on outpatient services for carpal tunnel syndrome in Ireland)

Just puttin’ this out there, is all:

Is Zappos the greatest online shoe store in the known universe, or what?

I’ve used them before, primarily because I have what one could lovingly call Jesus feet (that is, they’re wide enough for walking on water, not that they have nail holes in them or anything, because - well - shoes would be the least of my problems then). I suppose they’re not terribly wide, just an EE / XW, but for reasons unknown the brick-and-mortar retail shoe gods have seen fit to stock the shelves with nothing but medium.

For years, I just bought a size up, curing the width problem but - with one specific purchase, after a few weeks of wear - creating a funny clown shoe effect as one shoe would sort of slap back to the ground with each step.

*Stomp, slap, stomp, slap, stomp, slap*

Is it the soundtrack to a snuff film? Nope. Just Andy walkin’ down the hall.

Then I discovered Zappos. Shoes. Wide shoes. Affordable wide shoes. Lots of them. Even some rather nifty-looking ones at that.

My latest experience with Zappos was the best by far. I placed an order for two pairs of shoes one afternoon and - with no extra charge for shipping - they appeared on my doorstep the next morning. Hooray for magic shoe fairies!**

Alas, one of the pairs did not fit well, so I went online last night and, using the Zappos easy return policy, printed out postage-paid UPS labels to return the shoes the next day. Right after I submitted the return request online, I ordered a different pair of shoes to replace the ones I was sending back.

Lo and behold, hooray once again for magic shoe fairies***, a box was on my doorstep by midday today, bearing within its awaited podiatric prizes.

So, uh, what I really wanted to say is: Zappos is cool and stuff.

* But even if it were, what of it? Huh? We’re a very tolerant blog, see.

*** Not this time either.

It took all of 22 days from my last post on the subject, but I finally saw the error of my ways.

I now firmly believe the death penalty should be used as an irreversible, state-sanctioned punishment, because it’s abundantly clear to me that the legal process is foolproof, always just, and never adversely influenced by political ambition, moral crusading, or general incompetence.

With this new knowledge, I say kill the perps; they’re all guilty.

Or, you know, maybe not.

We’re all that much closer to the grave.

Yay!