Highlights of 2009

Until February I was too busy to write anything so I create a sum-it-all-up post. As I participated until June as a remote team member in the development of Serials Solutions’ new product Summon - a unified discovery service for libraries providing a Google-like search experience to researchers - there wasn’t much to write about publicly.

That changed in September when the idea of setting up a farm in the rainforest of Panama was conceived. I bought horses and had a lot of fun driving off-road with the Jeep including driving through a river.

In October I had an opportunity to explore the real jungle - just like the early explorers did. There was also a field trip to a teak plantation. A lot of effort was put into finding a good access road to the farm, as the access was by foot or on horseback only.

Having a farm one wants to develop some activity and so in November I bought two heads of cattle from a local farmer to get started. At the end of the month my guys and I started to prepare the rancho on the farm as a temporary place to stay and brought the cows to the land.

However, in December I learned that legal agreements are not always honored by all parties and had to retain a lawyer to resolve issues with the seller of the right to possess the land. With hope that the issues can be resolved I continued the search for a good access road and we found a better one. As there wasn’t much that we could do on the farm itself for the moment I dedicated time and resources to other preparatory work like building a homemade offroad trailer and helping someone with a little job of making wooden signs.

Photo Galleries

Festival de Naranja in Cacoa is about the celebration of the orange production in the small village of Cacoa in Western Panama.

I was invited to witness a private cow slaugther near the village of Sora in Western Panama.

Before finding the 130 hectares in Eastern Panama in September I explored the vicinity of our new home west of Panama City and came to visit Teria Nacimiento.

Due to a visit of a teak plantation near Colon I got into horseback riding.

Near where we lived people had a dancing event.

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