They Tell Me the Fault Line...

...runs right through the pier:

A top seismologist is warning that another major earthquake is in our future, a big one that could devastate Southern California, from the desert to the sea.

Lucy Jones, of the U.S. Geological Survey says it's not a question of where but when a big quake will strike the Coachella Valley, sandwiched between the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults.

Jones says that region is long overdue, and the seismic clock is ticking.

I can only hope that it holds off until I get out of here! We finished filming the Western 3 Gun World Cup yesterday for COWBOYS, and we have another COWBOYS filming day today. I would like to see W3G take off, because it is much more of a crossover sport for other practical pistol and three-gun shooters. There's a lot of movement — and, yes, you can shoot on the move, unlike traditional SASS cowboy matches — and the stage are designed like IPSC stages, in that shooters have the optionof how to run the stages as opposed to a specifically choreographed set of shooting positions. Yes, it still requires dressing in cowboy drag, but there are no clothes nazis.

Been talking to the shooters ramping up for the Steel Challenge this coming weekend...everybody, but everybody, has told me that I'm going to give away the money — the $20K from the Outdoor Channel and the $10K from Sig, contingency money for hitting 80 seconds overall time on the eight stages — this year. Of course, former Steel Challenge champion K.C. Eusebio, now with the Army Marksmanship Unit, turned in a blistering 80.09 second record-setting run at the Steel Challenge Nationals in Florida earlier this year, the first time that kind of speed has been shoot in competition (as opposed to practice). I'm told K.C. and AMU teammater Max Michel are running in the mid-70s in practice.

The handicappers tell me there are five shooters poised to go for the 80 Second Challenge — Eusebio, Steel Challenge winner Max Michel, last year's winner J.J. Racaza, long-shot Todd Jarrett from Para and Glock's Dave Sevigny, who has steadily gotten faster and faster with his Open Class Glock and is still stinging from his exclusion from the Super Squad last year. Sevigny's 2005 match performance wasn't enough to bump him into the elite squad, but his 2006 5th place finish took care of that issue!

Just behind them are B.J. Norris, Jerry Miculek, Angus Hobdell, Phil Strader, Jo Jo Vidanes, and several other shooters who are going to be pushing the leaderboard pretty hard. This year veteran champions Doug Koenig and Rob Leatham are sitting out the Open (Rob, who finished 7th in Open last year, will be shooting the iron-sighted Limited class; Doug, who just won his umpteenth Masters title, is staying home).