One goal of 2006 accomplished!

Finally I’ve accomplish one of my goals of 2006; I finished reading “Mein Kampf” today. Only took me nearly 5 months, but I did it! I wouldn’t allow myself to read any other books before I finished it because I knew if I started reading something else I wouldn’t get back to it. Well, I cheated perhaps, though just a little bit. With about 60 pages of “Mein Kampf” left I started reading Leonard Cohen’s “Book of Longing”, but I haven’t finished it yet, still have 33 pages left in it. So technically, “Mein Kampf” is still the first book to make my 2006 Book List. Though since it took me so long to get through it, I’m so far behind where I usually am in my book list by this time of year. But I’m not too concerned about it as I knew if I managed to read “Mein Kampf” in its entirety, that I wouldn’t read as many books this year as I normally would.

The book wasn’t exactly what I was expecting (though not entirely sure what I was expecting), and the interesting parts were far outnumbered by the not so interesting, rather dry parts, especially for someone like me without much interest in politics or the logistics of war. There were a few interesting chapters, namely the one on the role of propaganda and the one that spoke about the characteristics required to be a successful politician.

For the most part the book focused on the creation and development of the National Socialist party. There was one chapter in particular that was rather disturbing in which Hitler divulged his thoughts on the Jewish people and went on to describe them as a completely different race. That was a difficult chapter to get through, but once through it, for the most part he steered clear of the topic entirely. The book was written over 10 years before WWII so much of the known facts on Hitler’s involvement couldn’t even be written about as this was well before his “known” time.

And the amazing orator that Hitler was (had to have been to convince so many people that what he was doing was for the best), a writer he certainly was not! So many overly long, complex sentences, that many times you had to go back and reread it just to understand what he was saying. Also, there was no chronological sequence to the book that made any sense, rather it appeared just to be his thoughts as they occurred to him.

I’m going to finally start “Three Weeks With My Brother” tonight; Nicholas Sparks’ book about his journey around the world with his brother. I’ve been looking forward to it since I bought it back in January!

The races were interesting last night! No. 63 put my dad up into the wall (worst that was done was that the brake line snapped and my dad couldn’t finish the heat), and you can bet I was pretty angry about it. He was parked not far from my dad’s pad so I kept giving him dirty looks and cursing under my breath. Oh yeah, I can get pretty nasty in the name of the sport, which is another good reason why I’m not in a race car of my own! In a MacGyver kind of moment, the BBQ top grill was screwed on the front of my dad’s car to replace the front grill that was smashed in the crash and the brake line pinched so he could race in the next heat and feature (though it ended up that my dad was racing with the brakes only working in the front passenger side). My sister did alright last night too, though No. 83 jumped the start twice in a row in one of the heats (my sister was pole) and he was disqualified for the night or for the season (it’s not too clear which is the case yet). No. 9 won the feature in the Pure Stock division; the driver is only 13 years old! His mom ran out on the track, and his dad who was in the next race came out on the track in his own car and followed him in his victory lap; quite the moment – I even shed a few happy tears for him!

Won’t make it to the races next weekend, as I’m going to go to the Markham Rodeo with Bobbi and the boys. I’m pretty excited about it! Can’t wait to see the cowboys!

On May 29th my Mom and I are going to see the China National Opera & Dance Drama Theatre at the casino: “Direct from China, popular singers Xulan Zheng, Yanwen Han, Dai Shan and many more will perform traditional Chinese folk songs & dances set against a magnificent backdrop of visual effects and brilliant costumes.” I think that will be pretty interesting too!

Going to end this now, as Asili needs to go out, and I want to start “Three Weeks With My Brother!”