In the past several years, I have been involved in building a biologically realistic model of the monkey visual cortex. Work on one of the input layers (4Ca) of the primary visual cortex (V1) is now nearly complete, and I would like to share some of what I have learned with the community. After a brief overview of the model and its capabilities, I would like to focus on three sets of results that represent three different aspects of the modeling. They are: (i) emergent E-I dynamics in local circuits; (ii) how visual cortical neurons acquire their ability to detect edges and directions of motion, and (iii) a view across the cortical surface: nonequilibrium steady states (in analogy with statistical mechanics) and beyond.