Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen

thoughts, Uncategorized

Von guten Mächten treu und still umgeben,
behütet und getröstet wunderbar,
so will ich diese Tage mit euch leben
und mit euch gehen in ein neues Jahr.

Noch will das alte unsre Herzen quälen,
noch drückt uns böser Tage schwere Last.
Ach Herr, gib unsern aufgeschreckten Seelen
das Heil, für das du uns geschaffen hast.

Und reichst du uns den schweren Kelch, den bittern
des Leids, gefüllt bis an den höchsten Rand,
so nehmen wir ihn dankbar ohne Zittern
aus deiner guten und geliebten Hand.

Doch willst du uns noch einmal Freude schenken
an dieser Welt und ihrer Sonne Glanz,
dann wolln wir des Vergangenen gedenken,
und dann gehört dir unser Leben ganz.

Lass warm und hell die Kerzen heute flammen,
die du in unsre Dunkelheit gebracht,
führ, wenn es sein kann, wieder uns zusammen.
Wir wissen es, dein Licht scheint in der Nacht.

Wenn sich die Stille nun tief um uns breitet,
so lass uns hören jenen vollen Klang
der Welt, die unsichtbar sich um uns weitet,
all deiner Kinder hohen Lobgesang.

Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen,
erwarten wir getrost, was kommen mag.
Gott ist bei uns am Abend und am Morgen
und ganz gewiss an jedem neuen Tag.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945)

 

Personal 2018 Porsche 718 Cayman Review

Uncategorized

 

I’ve driven this 2018 copy of the Porsche Cayman 718 with the important PDK and sport exhaust and suspension upgrade and a long list of other non-important features.

My verdict: It’s the absolute best handling fun car that is insanely forgiving and therefore very drivable. It has enough every day usability built into the package to allow for year-round usage of this wonderful piece of engineering.

Having said that, it’s also an absolute Hooligan – a Krawall-Auto! The sport exhaust combined with the turbo opposed 4-cyclinder engine is a loud and rowdy power train with 300hp. It has very linear power delivery with excellent throttle response. It makes for a lot of fun, which is good, but you can never turn it off – which might be undesirable on long haul trips. After 3 hours of pure joy of engine sound singing all the way up to the 7500rpm redline your ears are getting tired. But the joy never fades. Just when it starts to get a little annoying, then you bury the right foot once again into the firewall and the car rockets with heft towards the next corner. The paddle shifters bang the gears of the double clutch PDK semi automatic gear box under full power without ever loosing power connection from the engine to the wheels. Bam-bam-bam-bam. 20-180km/h in – I don’t know in what time but it’s FAST!.

It’s a pure joy to throw the car through corners. Fortunately the drivetrain is matched with an equally capable set of brakes that never ever seem to fade. My passangers all got car sick and complained more about the hard breaking than the song of the tires at the limit through the countless turns. The suspension and steering is very communicative, and while the slight understeer into fast corners has been criticized by hard-core race car drivers, this behavior makes the car’s performance accessable to a much larger driver population who is able to operate the car close to its physical limit without undue demand on the drivers capabilities.

After 4 hours of converting carbon juices into combution gases, my cheek bone mustcles started to hurt from grinning too much all day long. The car was an absolute joy to drive and behaving like a hooligan for a day doesn’t sound so bad to me. But I wasn’t the one left in the dust…