A solar project that also makes shade

Agilent Technologies employees are happier than you'd think about their huge new solar-power system, which was nearly three years in the making and will greatly reduce the carbon footprint from the Fountaingrove campus.

The sea of hyper-efficient solar panels, which move to track the sun, are not mounted on a hillside but atop a new, 3-acre parking structure -- the largest parking structure of its type in the world.

You see what this means. Agilent employees now can pull in beneath a magnificent, state-of-the-art solar installation and protect their cars from the blasted sun.

HOT DOG'S FRIEND: An Exchange Bank customer was having a bad day. It was sunny and quite warm when she pulled into the drive-through lane at Coddingtown days ago and her car died.

She got out as the interior heated up. She wanted to take her dog out, too, but she had forgotten a leash.

The woman was becoming desperate and her dog was getting hotter when a man in a suit noticed their plight, walked briskly to a pickup and grabbed a length of rope that performed fine as a temporary leash.

The grateful Exchange Bank customer thanked her rescuer, Bill Reinking. He's the bank's CEO, but as it happens, values little above dogs.

ROW, ROW, ROW: The word is out that the Petaluma River is a dreamy place to lug in a little boat and take a paddle.

Among the more than 170 sculling crews signed up for today's third annual Wine Country Rowing Classic are three Olympians from the Beijing Games.

Scott Gault, Wes Piermarini and Elliot Hovey will be in Petaluma today with their California Rowing Club. Their presence has the race sponsors (www.northbayrowing.org) crowing while rowing.

PANTHER-PROUD: Loyal graduates of Santa Rosa's oldest high school have cause to whoop it up. Their pioneering Santa Rosa High Foundation has turned 20 years old, and its cash grants to the school have topped $1 million.

To mark the occasions, the foundation (www.srhsf.org) will put on a 20th Anniversary Celebration on Saturday up at the Fountaingrove Golf and Athletic Club.

Money raised at the bash will pay for the something that'll be nice even for people who only drive by Santa Rosa High once in a while: a historically and architecturally sensitive new sign for out front at the 134-year-old school.

STOMP, OR BE STOMPED: The fellow being shadowed by a TV crew at this weekend's Harvest Fair is Bob Blumer, a man on a mission.

As star of the Food Network's "Glutton for Punishment," Blumer attempts in five days to master a competitive culinary skill: oyster shucking, high-stress bartending, Benihana knife tossing, chili pepper eating.

For most of last week he trained like crazy with Glen Ellen winemaker Chris Benziger and Cotati's Jack Czajkowski, a two-time stomp champion.

During breaks in training, he and his crew visited chef Charlie Palmer at Dry Creek Kitchen and Duskie Estes at Zazu, and they cooked with grapes.

Blumer will do the stomping and his swabby will be Jed Czajkowski, who is Jack's brother and also an ex-stomp champion.

"This is a real sport," said Jed. As as a swabby, he scoops the juice toward the stomping vat valve and into a large glass jug. "This isn't fun and games."

Blumer hopes his training and determination will put him in the championship stomp-off this afternoon. But when we hooked up, he was doing no TV-star boasting.

"What happens happens," he said.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.