Grab your cowbell and think dry

<p>How about a few last-minute suggestions for taking in Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer and the Amgen cycle race that may just draw the biggest crowd Santa Rosa has ever seen?</p><p>Come in on a bike today, if it's not pouring rain. And don't think that we all have to jam in and around Old Courthouse Square.</p><p>There will be a festival, beer garden and huge-screen TV in Railroad Square. And Amgen fans will find all sorts of things to do and see at the Watch Party the Flamingo Hotel and neighboring merchants are putting on starting at noon at the Safeway-Longs center on Fourth Street at Farmers Lane.</p><p>Grab a cowbell and please, don't even think about painting messages to racers on our streets and roads. That is so not-Sonoma County.</p><p>ROB LAPS IT UP: "I got good news!" rejoiced 28-year-old Rob Read of Santa Rosa, who'll have thousands of eyes on him as he takes a short, sweet ride on the Amgen Tour course just ahead of the racers.</p><p>Rob is a two-time cancer survivor chosen by Amgen and its cancer-</p><p>fighting partners to gear up today and pedal the Breakaway Mile (www.breakawayfromcancer.com) about an hour before the leaders streak into town.</p><p>Days ago, he held his breath as he received the results of tests he underwent because of suspicions that cancer may have returned.</p><p>But it hasn't.</p><p>"I feel pretty darned lucky to be here," he said. He'll ride today for all cancer survivors and for all the people who supported and cheered and hung in with them when they needed it most.</p><p>PARK AT LUTHER'S FARM: The rain's just fine with volunteers at Luther Burbank's Gold Ridge Experiment Farm, but they'll be happy when the ground dries, too.</p><p>When that happens, a paving crew affiliated with the local Engineering Contractors Association will complete a gift to the farm: a 10-space, $45,000 parking lot.</p><p>Dedicated parking has been needed for decades at the historical gem on Sebastopol's Bodega Avenue, next to the Burbank Heights senior apartments.</p><p>More than a dozen paving-related firms in the ECA and many of their employees are donating labor, materials and equipment to the project at the farm. To longtime curator Steve Fowler and the other volunteers, that means a lot.</p><p>VAS DUPRE WOULD TRIM IT: When Santa Rosa Vice Mayor Marsha Vas Dupre sided with critics of the environmental report on the proposed Fountaingrove retirement community for gays and lesbians -- she suggested that trees and other natural elements perhaps should be treated as reincarnations of our ancestors -- she wasn't trying to kill the project.</p><p>Vas Dupre insists she doesn't seek to block the Fountaingrove Lodge development, rather she wants the builder to show greater respect to the environment and to make the project smaller.</p><p>NOSE LIKE A RABBIT? One second Bill Duke was standing near his dog, Leica, and making toast in the kitchen of his rural home off Riebli Road.</p><p>The next second, a Cooper's hawk flew in through the open sliding door and grabbed onto Leica's nose.</p><p>Duke can only imagine what the hawk thought it had spotted. A fat, furry rabbit, maybe? Regardless, the bird let go the instant it realized its prey was connected to a 70-pound Labrador retriever.</p><p>"After bouncing off the glass a couple of times, the hawk found its way back through the open sliding door and flew off," Duke said.</p><p>There wasn't a whole lot he could tell the dog.</p><p>Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.</p>