San Francisco constantly throws surprises at you.
BLOG: Valley View
By Zenobia Khaleel
SAN FRANCISCO: Life in San Francisco is never monotonous. The city constantly throws surprises at you, sometimes by dramatically reinventing itself, and sometimes by steadfastly opposing change.
Last weekend, driving off I-680, I was elated to discover a sprawling Victorian-era estate with all the works, right in the midst of bustling suburbia. A twenty-two-room Dutch Colonial house, an 19th-century barn, a farm equipment and vintage tractor museum, a walnut-processing plant, and 16 acres of hills and meadows frolicked by horses, ponies, sheep, and chicken.
This pastoral paradise is Forest Home historic park in San Ramon, an institution dedicated to the preservation and exhibition of the valley’s rich agricultural heritage. It was bequeathed to the city of San Ramon by the Boone family, who had the foresight to retain the pristine nature of the homestead to provide recreational and educational glimpses of the past to generations unaware of life in the simpler times.
Forest Home Farms is not a normal museum experience. A morning on the farm transports visitors to farm life in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and experience the old-fashioned techniques of sheering sheep, making butter, and darning socks. A stroll by the picket-fenced glasshouse and the garden bursting in Spring’s first vigor gives a sugar rush to the spirit. Last Saturday the farm conducted a mystery gadget tour, where the breakthrough devices of the late 1800 and the early 1900s were showcased.
Some exhibits were not a big mystery for Indians, like the boat-shaped coal-powered antique iron.
Here are a few quaint contraptions that caught my fancy:
A traveller. This is run on the rim of the wagon wheel to measure its diameter.
An egg scale.
A tiller – the soil was tilled by yoking this equipment on a farm animal.
The next leg of the tour took me past the grazing sheep and horses, to the vintage tractor and farm machine exhibit. The forest home farms ‘ tractor display figures the whole lineage of tractors made by John Deere and other major brands.
They also have an impressive lineup of hit-and-miss engines. I’m not talking about the Indian cricket team here; hit-and-miss engines are irrigation equipment, which were very popular and handy in 19th-century farmsteads. They performed chores like drawing water, grinding grain, sawing wood, making ice cream, and washing clothes. These engines did not have a throttle and speed control was maintained by the hit and miss action of the valves which cut off the fuel supply. These antique machines have been painstakingly restored into working condition by Ronald W. Frye, a Forest Home Farm volunteer. He gives a detailed explanation of the functions and mechanisms of the farm machinery.
The first generation of Maytag washing machine was quite an eye-opener for me, it came with multipurpose attachments, which included a meat grinder! And I thought the iPhone 5 was resourceful.
After an idyllic morning in the countryside, in the evening, I drove off to the other side of town and time, to witness the newest embellishment on the SFO skyline. The Bay Bridge which has always been the less glamorous cousin of the Golden Gate, got a huge makeover last week, and the result is VA VA VOOM!
An installation of 25,000 white LED lights, mounted on vertical cables on the western span of the bridge generates waves of rippling light, washing the bridge in radiance. The Bay Lights is the dream project of artist Leo Villareal, who interlaced art, technology, and an iconic bridge into a canvas to build the world’s largest LED light sculpture 1.8 miles wide and 500 feet high. To put this in perspective, the Bay Lights are seven times bigger in scope than the Eiffel Tower 100th anniversary lighting project.
The Bay lights sweeps across the bay and can be seen from as far as the Golden Gate bridge, but the best views are from the piers on the Embarcadero, and the waterfront restaurants. The artist’s greatest challenge was to create a masterpiece that would captivate viewers from up close and miles away. He calls it a digital campfire, to be enjoyed in an open space by everyone.
Walking along the pier at Embarcadero, it takes a few minutes for me to get used to the bracing winds, the salty air and the big city clichés. I gush at the romantic ardently proposing in the backdrop of the dazzling lights and avert my eyes from the homeless man peering into his cellphone. The abstract patterns on the bridge and its twinkling reflection in the inky waters have a hypnotic effect on everyone on the pier. The shimmering lights turn into zigzags, swimming fish, floating plankton and myriad other forms. The strains of Jazz from a street musician enhance the experience.
My photographs do not do justice to the display, as I had to lean shakily from the ledge, with grave risk to the camera (as my husband repeatedly pointed out).
The pedicab driver cycling viewers along the waterfront gives an informative spiel on the Bay light launch. The display was switched on remotely by the artist’s laptop, and it is controlled by a bunch of Mac Minis mounted inside the bridge. Each light node can be controlled remotely and individually, they’re turned on or off 60 times a second via a 1.8-mile fiber optic cable. Complex algorithms choreograph the system, which forms mesmerizing dancing sequences that never repeat.
The illumination of the bay goes on from dusk till 2.a.m, and will carry on till 2015.
Returning from the pier, a pertinent thought crossed my mind: one day my grandchildren will look at my holographic scrapbook, at my pictures, and smile condescendingly at our antiquated technology.
(Zenobia Khaleel has donned a lot of hats; writer, photographer, travel enthusiast, troop leader, amateur actor, event coordinator, community volunteer, but predominantly goes by the title Mom.)
Recent entries by Zenobia Khaleel:
- All hands on deck
- Unplugging tech, hiking and Jenga blocks
- Learning the language of the tech natives.