Scott Weaver

Someday, Scott Weaver's living room will belong to his wife again. But for now, and the past several decades, it's living proof of what happens when toothpicks, ping pong balls and the imagination collide.

Thirty-four years ago, the Rohnert Park resident [Rohnert Park is a city in Sonoma County, California, located approximately 50 miles north of San Francisco] began gluing the tiny sticks together to form abstract structures. Then he started rolling ping pong balls around them. Soon he built a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge, then Lombard Street.

Three thousand hours and 100,000 toothpicks later, Weaver's whim has spiraled into a massive piece-de-resistance that includes every major landmark of the city that inspired it - and then some.

"I always had a dream that I would build the world's largest toothpick sculpture," Weaver says as he climbs a step ladder and plunks a ball into Coit Tower. "It's not, but none of them have a ping pong ball that rolls through it."

"Rolling Through the Bay" is 9 feet tall, 7 feet wide and 2 feet deep. It sports four ping pong ball tracks with more than a dozen entry points.

There's the Golden Gate tour, which snakes through Chinatown and Aquatic Park and ends at the old Fleishhacker Pool. There's the Cable Car tour, which travels past the painted ladies of Alamo Square into Golden Gate Park and onto the old Ferris wheel at Ocean Beach. There's even a nod to the East Bay that features a BART train and the Bay Bridge.

Look closely, though, and an even more detailed world appears. Surfers give the peace sign as they ride the waves near Ocean Beach. Two crabs are escaping from Fisherman's Wharf. The tail of Humphrey the humpback whale splashes by the bay.

Weaver, 49, grew up with a mostly absentee and alcoholic father, and it wasn't long before Weaver also turned to the bottle. But he proudly says he's been sober for more than a decade now, with help from Alcoholics Anonymous.

Elements of his life are reflected in the sculpture, which includes numerous AA emblems. The heart inside the Palace of Fine Arts is made of toothpicks that friends threw at his wedding in lieu of rice. "I picked them up and put them in my pocket," he says with a smile. [From SFGate.com]