Ask post: What literary fiction should I read?

"House of Spirits" by Chilean author, Isabelle Allende, meets your criteria, with alternately beautiful and terrible characters.
posted to Ask Metafilter by eirelander at 6:56 PM on May 18, 2008

Ask post: Wake Up!

The best solution for me is to get rid of the alarm clock. Who wants to start their morning with an aggravating buzzer or disc jockey anyway? Without an alarm clock (which I do use from time to time to catch an early flight, etc) you start to establish a natural rhythm of sleeping only as long as your body needs. I know it sounds like a Kramer-idea, but after a while, you just wake up naturally around the same time each day.
posted to Ask Metafilter by eirelander at 11:40 AM on October 2, 2007

Ask post: Should I powerwash asbestos siding?

All good points.

My biggest concern was premature peeling if I painted over a dirty surface. There is no mildew, but there is a little chalky surface resin that comes off when wiped with a finger.

Maybe I'll try the low impact approach and clean it with soap and water first.
posted to Ask Metafilter by eirelander at 12:12 PM on May 19, 2007

So, I called the local Sherwin Williams and they recommended washing the walls with a 1:3 solution of bleach:water. I washed a small area by hand, rinsed with a hose, and it seems to work great. Simple bleach, water, and elbow grease removed most of the chalkiness - which I'm happy about because I'm convinced powerwashing would have been a bad idea.
posted to Ask Metafilter by eirelander at 7:33 PM on May 19, 2007

Ask post: Solid Wood Countertop?

I installed solid maple countertops (Boos block) throughout kitchen except around the sink where I used laminate. I love the maple. I like to bake and no surface has a better feel for rolling pizza and pie dough, or kneading bread. And I can just scrape up the flour, etc with a dough scraper and clean up is a breeze. Unlike granite, it's warm to the touch. dmt is right, you'll have to watch out for staining liquids like red wine and soy sauce. You can renew the surface with a sander every few... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by eirelander at 9:15 AM on November 28, 2006

Ask post: I shall walk into the wild...

100 mile wilderness is a good one. The best part might be the finish (assuming you will start in Monson, ME) at Mt. Katahdin, the tallest mountain in Maine - and the best, most dramatic, above treeline hiking in the east IMHO. Read as you go "The Maine Woods" by HD Thoreau, and you might have the perfect experience.
posted to Ask Metafilter by eirelander at 8:07 PM on September 25, 2006