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Return to About Mormons home
Handcart Companies
The Handcart Family, by Torlief Knaphus (1926, life sized bronze), Temple Square, Salt Lake City. This statue on Temple Square commemorates the faith and sacrifice of 2,962 mormon pioneers who walked from Iowa and Nebraska to Utah, pushing and pulling handcarts loaded with their provisions and belongings. Courtesy Utah State University.
by Howard A. Christy
The large backlog of needy LDS converts awaiting passage from Europe and reduced tithing receipts at home persuaded Brigham Young in 1855 to instruct that the "poor saints" sailing from Liverpool to New York and taking the train to Iowa City should thence "walk and draw their luggage" overland to Utah. In 1856 five such mormon pioneer handcart companies were organized to make the 1,300-mile trip on foot from the western railroad terminus at Iowa City to Salt Lake City (see Immigration and Emigration; Mormon Trail).
Success seemed assured when the first two companies, totaling 486 immigrants pulling 96 handcarts, arrived safely in Salt Lake City on September 26, 1856. They accomplished the trek in under sixteen weeks. The third company, and presumably the last of the season, made up of 320 persons pulling 64 handcarts, arrived on October 2. But at that point the two remaining companies, totaling 980 people and 233 handcarts, were still on the way, having started dangerously late. One of these companies, under James G. Willie, left Iowa City on July 15, crossed Iowa to Florence (Omaha), Nebraska, then, after a week in Florence, headed out onto the plains. The last company, under Edward Martin, departed Florence on August 25. Three independent wagon companies, carrying 390 more immigrants, also started late.
A week after the departure of the Martin Company, Franklin D. Richards, an apostle who had organized the handcart effort as president of the European Mission, also departed Florence with sixteen other returning missionaries. This party, on horseback and in fast carriages, passed the Martin Company on September 7, the Willie Company on September 12, and arrived in Salt Lake City on October 4.
Richards's report that many more immigrants were coming was a shock: the late-starting immigrants would not be adequately clothed for the cold weather they would surely experience; they, like those in all previous lightly supplied handcart companies, would be perilously short of food; and, as they were unexpected, the last resupply wagons, which were routinely dispatched into the mountains to meet immigrant companies, had already returned.
Anticipating the worst, President Young mobilized men and women gathered for general conference and immediately ordered a massive rescue effort. A party of twenty-seven men, led by George D. Grant, left on October 7 with the first sixteen of what ultimately amounted to 200 wagons and teams. Several of the rescue party, including Grant, had been among the missionaries who had ridden in from the East five days before.
Two weeks later, one of the earliest blizzards on record struck just as both the handcart companies and the independent wagon companies were entering the Rocky Mountains in central Wyoming. After several days of being lashed by the fierce blizzard, people in the exposed handcart companies began to die.
Grant's rescue party found the Willie Company on October 21in a blinding snowstorm one day after they had run out of food. But the worst still lay ahead, when, after a day of rest and replenishment, the company had to struggle over the long and steep eastern approach to South Pass in the teeth of a northerly gale. Beyond the pass, the company, now amply fed and free to climb aboard empty supply wagons as they became available, moved quickly, arriving in Salt Lake City on November 9. Of the 404 still with the company, 68 died and many others suffered from severe frostbite and near starvation.
Those of the Martin Company, three-fourths of them women, children, and the elderly, suffered even more. When the storm hit on October 19, they made camp and spent nine days on reduced rations waiting out the storm. Grant's party, after leaving men and supplies with the Willie Company, plunged farther east through the snow with eight wagons in search of the Martin Company. A scouting party sent out ahead of the wagons found them 150 miles east of South Pass.
The company, already in a desperate condition, was ordered to break camp immediately. The supply wagons met them on the trail, but the provisions were not nearly enough and, after struggling 55 miles farther, the company once again went into camp near Devil's Gate to await the arrival of supplies.
In the meantime, the rescue effort began to disintegrate. Rescue teams held up several days by the raging storm turned back, fearing to go on and rationalizing that the immigrant trains and Grant's advance party had either decided to winter over or had perished in the storm.
The Martin Company remained in camp for five days. When no supplies came, the company, now deplorably weakened, was again forced out on the trail. It had suffered fifty-six dead before being found, and it was now losing people at an appalling rate.
Relief came barely in time. A messenger ordered back west by Grant reached and turned around some of the teams that had abandoned the rescue. At least thirty wagons reached the Martin Company just as it was about to attempt the same climb to South Pass that had so sorely tested the Willie Company. Starved, frozen, spent, their spirits crushed, and many unable to walk, the people had reached the breaking point.
But now warmed and fed, with those unable to walk riding in the wagons, the company moved rapidly on. The Martin Company, in a train of 104 wagons, finally arrived in Salt Lake City on November 30. Out of 576, at least 145 had died and, like the Willie Company, many were severely afflicted by frostbite and starvation.
Elements of the three independent wagon companies and the rescue effort straggled into Salt Lake City until mid-Decemberexcept for twenty men, under Daniel W. Jones, who remained for the winter at Devil's Gate to guard freight unloaded there by the independent wagon companies, in part to make room for exhausted members of the Martin Company. The Jones party suffered misery and starvation at Devil's Gate. At one point they were reduced to eating rawhide until friendly Indians gave them some buffalo meat.
The decision to send out the Willie and Martin companies so late in the season was extremely reckless. In mid-November President Brigham Young angrily reproved those who had authorized the late start or who had not ordered the several parties back to Florence when they still had the opportunity, charging "ignorance," "mismanagement," and "misconduct." Though terrible, the suffering could have been far worse. Had the rescue effort not been launched immediatelywell before the storm struckthe handcart companies would probably have been totally destroyed.
Six more handcart companies crossed the plains after 1856. To demonstrate that the idea was still viable, seventy missionaries made the trip in the opposite direction in the spring of 1857. Five companies, totaling 1,076 immigrants with 223 handcarts, crossed west with little difficulty: two in 1857, one in 1859, and two in 1860. In all, 2,962 immigrants walked to Utah with handcarts. About 250 died along the wayall but about 30 of those in the Willie and Martin companies.
For Latter-day Saints, the handcart story, particularly the account of the Willie and Martin companies, has darkened the collective memory of the westering saga. But that episode is also remembered for the unparalleled gallantry exhibited by so many, immigrants and rescuers alike. Of particular note is the superb performance of the women; their courage and mettle contributed enormously to the eventual survival of both companies. It was at once the most ill-advised and tragic, the most heroic, and arguably the proudest single event in the Mormon pioneer experience.
(See Daily Living home page; Church History home page; 1844-1877 home page)
Handcart Company, by C. C. A. Christensen (1900, oil on canvas, 25" x 38"). Two of the handcart pioneers, C. C. A. Christensen and his wife, sailed to the United States in 1857, made their way to Iowa City, purchased hickory handcarts, and set out on their walk to the Great Salt Lake Valley. Over thirty years later he painted this scene from the more than 1,300 mile journey. Church Museum of History and Art.
Cornwall, Rebecca, and Leonard J. Arrington. Rescue of the 1856 Handcart Companies. Vol. 11 of the Charles Redd Monographs in Western History. Provo, Utah 1981.
Hafen, LeRoy R., and Ann W. Hafen. Handcarts to Zion: The Story of a Unique Western Migration, 1856-1860. Vol. 14 of the Far West and the Rockies Historical Series. Glendale, Calif., 1960.
Stegner, Wallace. The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail. New York, 1964.
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol. 2, Handcart Companies
Copyright © 1992 by Macmillan Publishing Company
All About Mormons


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once you power up or off (Can't recall which) you can set the flag for the auto locks by holding the lock up for 5 seconds!
I despised and loathed the auto locks, and they helped me here to disable them! with out leaf spy (At the time didn't have it)

subset: commoncrawl


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Change grows slowly in America. It takes a long time for the change to reach a tipping point. But when it does reach a certain level, the change takes off. On the other hand, if change tries to happen too fast, it is fought off with resistance, anger, and envy. Is this the case with the Tucker Car Company? Or did the company implode under its own mismanagement?
Preston Tucker was a whiz kid. He rebuilt cars in his garage he had gotten out of a junkyard. As a young man, he worked with cars at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the 1930s. During World War II, Tucker attempted to build a plane, known as the "peashooter," for the US, but problems within the company led to its failure. However, Tucker was successful in designing and building turrets for planes and other assorted vehicles. His combat car was turned down by the government because it went too fast. The army only wanted 35 mph for its combat vehicles.
After the war, Tucker turned his eye toward developing a new car. Hiring designer Alex Tremulis, Tucker's vision of the car of the future began to take shape. Influenced by the design of rockets, the car originally gained the nickname, the Tucker Torpedo. With the help of engineer John Eddie Offut, who had worked with Tucker and Harry Miller at Indy, the engine was put in place. And the car's outside design was not the only futuristic thing about it. The car was quite different from any car of the era. It had several unique features which were miles ahead of its time.
1. The engine was located in the back and the trunk was in the front.
2. It had three headlights. The two outside lights were normal lights like any other car. The middle headlight, or "cyclops," could change direction.
3. It had pop out front windshields. In case of a crash, the glass could come out in two pieces to prevent it from breaking all over the passengers.
4. Its radio system was unparalled.
5. In addition, there were disc brakes, an air cooled engine, interchangeable seats.
Horizontally opposed rear-mounted flat six cylinder engine
Aluminum block produced by Franklin Aircooled Motors
Maximum horsepower: 166 b.h.p. @ 3200 r.p.m.
Maximum torque: 450 lbs/ft @ 1800 r.p.m.
Induction system: 2-bbl. Stromberg downdraft carburetor, mechanical fuel pump
Exhaust system: Twin mufflers, 6 exhaust pipes
Electrical system: 6-volt battery/coil
Fuel feed: Direct fuel injection through rotating distributor pump; S-2 single plunger or S-3 multiple plunger systems. Pressure at nozzle; 100 to 200 p.s.i.
Operating oil pressure: 60 p.s.i.
Ignition: 12-volt system, Autolite distributor and low output coil
Weight (complete): 490 lbs.
Transmission: 4-speed manual with Bendix vacuum-electrical preselector
Brakes: 4-wheel hydraulic drums, internal expanding
General Specifications:
Wheelbase: 130 in.
Front tread: 64 in.
Rear tread: 65 in.
Tire size: 7.00 x 15.00
Height: 60 in.
Length: 219 in.
Width: 79 in.
Weight: 4235 lbs.
Fuel Tank: 20 gal.
Mileage: 18-19 m.p.g. average
Original price: $2450 (projected, 1948)
Performance (from Mechanix Illustrated, Aug. 1948)
0-30 m.p.h. 3.5 sec.
0-60 m.p.h. 10.0 sec.
Top speed 119 m.p.h. at Sebring, 1956
Original Tucker Paint Colors
100 Black
200 Walz Blue
300 Dark Green
400 Beige/Tan
500 Silver (Pearl) Gray
600 Maroon
The word of mouth on the Tucker began to spread before one car had been built. To build his car of the future, Tucker obtained the rights to the old Dodge Plant on Cicero in Chicago. It was to be the world's largest automobile plant. He originally hired 1900 employees to build his fleet. To raise money for his corporation and manufacturing of the first set of cars, Tucker used three ways to raise capital. Suspicion about all three would lead to his down fall.
1. Tucker sold licenses to 2000 dealers across the country.
2. Tucker began selling stock in his company. Over 10,000 such certificates were issued.
3. Tucker also began selling accessories to the car.
Over $25 million in capital was raised. This amount of money turned many heads in the automobile industry. Small start up car companies at that point in history relied on grants. For an upstart company like Tucker, the capital raised almost insured its success. However, the amount raised caught the ire of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). They soon filed a suit which bring about the downfall of the company because the assets were frozen. The company could do nothing. Tucker and six of his executives were indicted on 25 counts of fraud. To try and quell speculation regarding the trial, Tucker wrote this letter to the public to keep faith in the company.
No real evidence was put forth by the SEC and Otto Kerner that the Tucker Corporation was misusing the capital it had raised. Every prosecutory piece of evidence had been rebuked under cross examination. When it came time to give the defense, Tucker's attorney, William Kirby, offered no defense. The six defendants and Tucker were all acquitted.
It was too late for the company though. The Tucker Car Company was over. The lawsuit had driven the company under. Only 51 cars were produced. 47 are still in existence. The Tucker Car Club of America has pictures and details about every single car produced.
Tucker would go to Brazil to build a car known as the Carioca. However, Tucker died of lung cancer in 1956. The Tucker '48 sedans still live on for only a few people. The remaining cars today are valued at upwards of 200,000 a piece.Several of the design and safety features of the Tucker would make their way into car design in the 1950s.
The tragedy for Tucker was that the lawsuit by the SEC brought down his company before it could even compete with the Ford, GM, or Chrysler. Speculation exists that pressure was put on the SEC by Michigan Congressman to bring down Tucker. Economist Melvin Barger disagrees. He believes Tucker was doomed from the start.
Tucker himself, if he had possessed more self-understanding and business savvy, might have prospered as a custom car remodeler. He did have a love of cars and he had experience in the automotive field. In a way, the Tucker car itself was a customized remodeling of existing car concepts. Tucker's use of the Cord trans-mission, for example, showed that he understood nifty innovations which somehow hadn't succeeded in the market. But one of Tucker's problems was in being carried away by a "dream" while ignoring the practical work needed to apply it for useful purposes. Mere possession of a dream does not excuse a person from exercising prudence in business relationships.


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Chris Peck Skater Profile
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Hometown: North Cackalack Texas, Califoolya, Stance: Goofy, Age: , Status: Am
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Now John do you understand why people think she has a few screws loose?
Sara Palin of "drill baby drill" fame is accusing Obama of being in cahoots with big oil. LOL. Now John would someone who you called a "Socialist, Communist, and Marxist," who believes in the "crackpot" theory (according to you) of global warming and who has suported a transformation to alternative energy in this country through a carbon tax or carbon credits be a big friend of big oil?
Please tell her to go away. She has no idea what she is talking about at least half the time (thats being generous). She is the ultimate twit and dumbass.


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Teacup Yorkshire Terrier Puppies, Teacup Yorkie Maltese Puppies, Teacup Pomeranian Puppies, Teacup Havanese Puppies, Teacup Morkie Puppies In Washington DC Area
We've written a referral before, but because we have been so impressed with Dcpup.com, I just wanted to write again! :) We have had Pixie for almost 2 years now, she is our little love bug! My husband and I constantly talked about how she is such a perfect dog for us. She has the sweetest personality and we absolutely LOVE HER! When we got her, she was guaranteed to stay under 4.5 lbs. She currently is 2.1 lbs and is full grown and completely healthy. People can't believe how small she is, but size doesn't stop her. She is so much fun and we couldn't have been blessed with a more perfect dog. She is part of our family now and we hope to get her a "sister" to play with soon and we would not even think of checking out any other breeder because Dc pup has gone beyond our expectation! We couldn't be more happy!
|11 weeks old


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- gotten a modeling contract with Nocturnal Agency.
- stepped up on a stage again - after almost eight years absence - because I decided to try burlesque.
- ruined myself on Swarovski crystals, since I fell in love with this old-time way to strip and have to create many more numbers.
- been an AP-girl for one evening, when I worked as a hostess at Agent Provocateur during Fashion Night Out.
- worn jewelry worth 4 million SEK (154,000 USD), when working for the auction house Bukowskis.
- met many new, crazy, weird, and absolutely wonderful friends.
- gone to some of the most amazing parties.
- realized that foot-fetish people really like my feet.
- managed to keep this blog going for yet another year...
...and hoping to have the time to keep it going for a long time to come! But of course I wouldn't spend all this time blogging if no one wanted to read it. So THANK YOU to all my lovely followers - AND occasional readers!!!
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and that whatever you choose to do on New Years Eve will be as fabulous as the burlesque masquerade ball I will be attending on this evening! Fräulein Frauke and her husband John Paul Bichard are as usual the talented couple behind the party, and as I know how amazing their events always are, this New Years feast will probably end up in the history books!
Happy New Year!!!


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Typhoid in the Spanish American war
Occasionally, I hear someone waxing nostalgic about the good old days, and I admit that I, too, sometimes grow wistful for simpler times.
However, I don't feel a deep yearning to return to animal-powered transportation -- such as horses and buggies. They didn't create air pollution problems like cars do, but the manure on the streets was a huge sanitation problem. In warm weather, street manure was a prime breeding ground for flies as well as a source of stench. Pedestrians had to watch their step at all times, and in wet weather, they ran the danger of being splashed with raw sewage from the street. (I'm not exaggerating.)
I don't get nostalgic about outhouses, either, having had the joy of using one at school through the eighth grade. People like to decorate their bathrooms with cute privy pictures and to send around amusing e-mail poems about outhouses, but those outdoor toilets really weren't very pleasant places. They were cold in the winter, and in warm weather, well... they smelled bad and the flies liked them.
The following is from a health textbook of the 1920s:
In the Spanish-American War, about one out of every five of our volunteer soldiers had typhoid fever, and it was found that the fly was one of the principal agents in spreading the disease. In Jacksonville, Florida, flies used to cause a great deal of typhoid, until a campaign for the screening of outside closets reduced the typhoid death rate of the city to less than one fourth of what it had been.
Typhoid fever is by no means the only disease that is carried by flies. Studies made by the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor in New York City showed that babies which were carefully protected from flies had only one half as much diarrheal disease (summer complaint) as babies not protected in this way.
Source: Healthy Living (p. 264), a textbook by Dr. Charles-Edward Amory Winslow, published in 1924 by the Charles E., Merrill Company of New York and Chicago.


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Why? Because you can! And pickle, and jam, or otherwise celebrate the resurgence of the domestic arts our forebears held so dear. Put on your best apron and step into our kitchen, won't you?
Got left over peels and cores from processing apples? Get as much as you can from them by making jelly.


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War Eagle Extra
Auburn football: With breakout game behind him, Corey Grant hungry for more (w/video)
AUBURN, Ala. — It took until the game ended for Corey Grant to finally realize what he had just accomplished on the field last Saturday.
He had just finished off a tour de force performance, running for a game-high 146 yards on nine carries against Washington State. It was the type of game Auburn's junior running back admitted once doubting he could achieve.
Who's to blame him?
His circuitous, frustrating path to Saturday would do little to boost anyone's confidence. His Opelika, Ala., upbringing wasn't able to keep him rooted around Auburn following his prep career, as he committed to arch-rival Alabama in the summer of 2009.
"It was a tough decision," he said. "I loved (then-Auburn offensive coordinator) Coach (Gus) Malzahn and his offense."
It was a decision he would come to regret. Yes, part of the reason he committed to the Crimson Tide was because the team promised to take advantage of his skill set, predicated on the blazing speed that made a two-time state champion in the 100-meter dash and a one-time state winner in the 200 meters.
But the other factor had nothing to do with football: He simply wanted to get away from home.
"So I did that," he said. "Then I realized that it really wasn't for me."
He spent one season with Alabama, taking a redshirt in 2010 before transferring to Auburn. Once he joined the Tigers, however, he had to sit out yet another season to satisfy the NCAA's rules on transfers.
In 2012, he finally saw the field, though it was solely in mop-up duty.
That's why Saturday meant so much to him.
"Everybody always says hard work pays off," he said. "I see that it does."
Grant flashed the speed that made him a high school track star in the second quarter, taking a handoff around the left side and racing untouched for a 75-yard score. Nearly three years had passed since his last touchdown — which, he recalled, came when he was still an Opelika Bulldog — and he was ready to revel in the moment. It was a celebration deferred, as the play was reviewed to make sure he didn't step out of bounds. Grant didn't have to worry, as the touchdown stood.
Let the pandemonium begin.
"It was exciting," he said. "My teammates know what I've been through. For me to do that and for us to do that together, it was an exciting moment."
Left tackle Greg Robinson couldn't contain his excitement, either.
"Really, when he broke off to the sideline I was cheering him on," he said. "They all knocked him down in the end zone, but he felt good about it and it's good for the hard work to pay off."
Malzahn was also pleased Grant showed his stuff against Washington State. Not that it came as any surprise to him.
"I was here before, and I knew what he could do," Malzahn said. "But he wasn't eligible that year. You saw him on the scout team. He's got a chance to really help us (this season)."
Offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee echoed Malzahn's thoughts. The coaching staff had seen everything he could during spring practice, which carried over into fall camp. One aspect of Grant's game revealed itself Saturday that even Lashlee didn't see coming.
"He (made) some cuts that were impressive that maybe we didn't know he could do," Lashlee said. "His speed is definitely a weapon for him. As you were able to see on Saturday, he helps us have a potential one-play drive or a guy who can make those explosive plays and flip the field and help you get chunks (of) yardage."
Perhaps the most impressive part of Grant's explosiveness?
He hasn't lost his lightning quickness despite putting on 30 pounds of muscle since high school.
"I actually feel a little bit faster," he said, noting the last time he ran the 40 he was unofficially timed at 4.29 seconds. "Working with (strength and conditioning) Coach (Ryan) Russell, he knows what he's doing and he helps us a lot with our speed – (especially) maintaining your speed as you get bigger."
The added strength will be an asset when he has to face off against some of formidable defenses the SEC has to offer as the season progresses. He shied away from any talk of being "an SEC-type running back" just yet. It's only been one game, after all.
Those are the types of designations that only come with time, and only on the basis of multiple games like he put together Saturday.
"Hopefully I can prove that later in the season," he said.
Related stories:
VIDEO: Gus Malzahn says Tigers have 'got a lot of work to do'
Auburn football: Gus Malzahn defends Nick Marshall's passing, says offense's performance was 'below average'


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Kick time set for Penn State Blue-White Game on April 12
Kick time set for Penn State Blue-White Game on April 12
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – One of the highlights of the Penn State sports calendar, the Blue-White Game presented by AAA, is set for Saturday, April 12, as the centerpiece event for activities throughout the weekend on the University Park campus.
Blue-White Game kickoff is set for 1:30 p.m. for coach James Franklin's Nittany Lions. The game will air on the Penn State Sports Network. As in previous years, there will be no admission or parking fee for the Blue-White Game. Stadium parking lots will open at 8 a.m. The times for stadium gate openings for the fans will be announced in March.
The popular autograph session with the team returns to Beaver Stadium and will be held in the late morning prior to the game. The time for the autograph session on April 12 will be announced in March. The Penn State football game day Fan Festival, with numerous displays and vendors, will be held on Curtin Road as it is during the season.
The Penn State women's tennis team will be home during Blue-White Weekend, hosting Purdue (3:30 p.m. April 11) and Indiana (11 a.m. April 13). All the other Nittany Lion spring teams are on the road April 11 to 13.
The fifth annual Paterno Family Beaver Stadium Run/Family Fun Walk to benefit Special Olympics Pennsylvania is set for Sunday, April 13. Participants will finish at the 50-yard line in Beaver Stadium for the 3-mile run or one-mile walk. For more information, go to www.specialolympicspa.org/beaver-stadium-run.
With the Penn State Coaches' Caravan slated to kick off in State College later this spring, the Nittany Lion Club will not have a Blue-White Event this year the morning of the spring game. The cities and dates for the Coaches' Caravan will be announced in early March.
The game is the University's unofficial annual spring reunion. The 2012 scrimmage drew an estimated 60,000 fans, the nation's third-highest spring football game attendance. The Blue-White Game attracted record-breaking crowds in excess of 70,000 from 2007-09, topped by 76,500 at the 2009 contest.
Franklin was named the Nittany Lions' 16th head football coach on Jan. 11. A product of Langhorne, Pa., Franklin led Vanderbilt University to unprecedented success the past three years as head coach, including consecutive nine-win seasons and bowl victories the past two years, as well as back-to-back Top 25 finishes, all for the first time in VU history. In his 20th year of coaching, Franklin was a two-time All-PSAC quarterback at East Stroudsburg University.
Penn State returns 15 starters and 41 letterwinners for the upcoming season. The Nittany Lions will begin spring drills March 17, with the 15 practices culminating in the Blue-White Game on April 12.
Season ticket renewals are under way at www.GoPSUsports.com/accountmanager. The initial deadline for Nittany Lion Club donations was Feb. 1. There again was no increase in season tickets prices for Penn State football for the 2014 season. New season tickets are available by calling 800-NITTANY, from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays.
Penn State announced two new football ticket initiatives in January.
-- The Recent Graduate program gives Penn State graduates who earned an undergraduate degree from 2010-14 at any campus the opportunity to purchase up to two season tickets for $300 per ticket for the seven-game home schedule this fall. The cost includes a $50 donation to the Nittany Lion Club and is a savings of 35 percent from the regular $460 season ticket price ($360 + $100 NLC donation).
A total of 2,500 seats are available for the Recent Graduate program on a first-come, first-served basis. The seats will be located in the North Upper Deck, in Sections NAU-NLU. Interested recent graduates can call 800-NITTANY from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays.
-- Penn State will be implementing a variable pricing structure for its single game public football tickets during the 2014 season. Single game tickets will go on sale to the general public in July, with tickets being available for as low as $40 for some games. For a full list of prices by section for the 2014 football season, fans can log onto http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/011414aab.html.
Coach Franklin and the Nittany Lions open the season on Aug. 30 vs. UCF in Dublin, Ireland, at the Croke Park Classic. Penn State returns 15 starters (seven offense, seven defense, one specialist) and will host Rose Bowl Champion Michigan State (Nov. 29), Ohio State (Oct. 25), Northwestern (Sept. 27-Homecoming) and Maryland (Nov. 1) during its 2014 Big Ten home schedule. The Nittany Lions will play a trio of 2013 Top 10 teams this fall.
Penn State Football is on Twitter (@PennStateFball) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/PSUFball).


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TMF Testing to ISO 12111 and ASTM E2368
Thermomechanical Fatigue (TMF) systems simulate the complex effects of simultaneous thermal and mechanical strain. This test is able to replicate the service conditions normally experienced by gas turbines, jet engines and the infrastructure associated with power generation. More sophisticated than isothermal fatigue, TMF uses induction heating to achieve specimen heating rates in excess of 50°C/s. Instron's dedicated TMF testing software is then able to extract the thermal strain and mechanical strain components from the total strain measured. This testing helps to better evaluate the life of materials and engineering components that are used in safety critical, high-temperature applications. The trend towards TMF testing is driven, among other things, by a growing requirement for power 'on-demand' or 'reactive power' that needs to work in conjunction with intermittent, renewable power sources.
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Thermomechanical Fatigue (TMF) Testing Systems
Instron® Thermomechanical Fatigue testing systems provide a fully integrated, turnkey solution for analysis of combined thermal and mechanical loading cycles on high performance materials.
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SPEARFISH, S.D. (AP) – The Black Hills communities of Spearfish, Belle Fourche and Sturgis have welcomed home 160 South Dakota Army National Guard soldiers on Thursday.
A ceremony for the 842nd Engineer Company took place Thursday afternoon at Black Hills State University in Spearfish.
The unit, which deployed in September, just completed a yearlong deployment to Afghanistan. The soldiers have been completing demobilization requirements at Fort Bliss, Texas.
While overseas, members of the 842nd used bulldozers, scrapers, cranes, loaders and 20-ton dump trucks to build and maintain roads, construct base force protection measures and provide limited clearing operations.


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Posted on Nov 14, 2014
Celebrating Veterans and Veterans Aid and Attendance Benefit
Veterans Day, celebrated on November 11, is a national holiday in America that was created to honor our nation's veterans. While it may seem like something we should do on a daily basis, the date is a yearly reminder to thank those who sacrifice their valuable time and sometimes their lives to protect our freedom. This year, make it a point to shake a soldier's hand and perhaps buy them a cup of coffee. Even if Veterans Day has passed, it is important to take the time to show your appreciation all year long.
One way to thank a veteran is to send a simple card with a note of gratitude. If you have an elderly loved one who is a veteran, perhaps a visit to their home to sit and chat about the good ole days will be enough to brighten their day. If your veteran loved one is of the newer generation and uses social media, use the site to thank them for their service. While most veterans aren't sitting around waiting for their thank you, it still means a lot to be remembered, especially on this national holiday.
We can celebrate our veterans by acknowledging them and the time sacrificed away from family and friends while they served. Make it a point to visit a veteran loved one. Some veterans are proud of their experiences in the military and would love to share their stories of comradery and heroism with their loved ones. If your loved one would prefer not to go into details about their service, just spending time with them doing what they enjoy is all they need to feel appreciated.
The best way to show someone you care is to take time out of your day to spend it with them. Time spent together sharing conversation and old stories is more valuable than any monetary form of thanks.
The Veterans Administration recognizes the men and women who have served for our country and has created an improved pension to help veterans afford any additional care they may need as they get older. If your veteran loved one requires assistance with eating, bathing and mobility, they are eligible to apply for the Veterans Aid and Attendance Benefit. With a little guidance by our office, we can help your loved one enroll in this form of financial assistance.
If you would like to learn more about in home health care for veterans, call Senior Helpers of Fountain Valley to speak to a senior care specialist today 714-593-1177! The compassionate senior care specialists at Senior Helpers can show you the many benefits of professional senior care at home or dementia and Alzheimer's care. The senior care specialist will also guide you through the process of receiving the Veterans Administration Aid and Attendance Benefit if your elderly loved one is a veteran. In home senior care and in home assisted living allows your loved one to stay in the comforts of their own home for as long as possible while receiving the level of care they need. Senior Helpers of Fountain Valley provides a wide range of services including Alzheimer's and dementia care, personal assistance, companionship, and so much more to all areas of Orange County, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa, Laguna Hills, and Laguna Woods, California.


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The St. Mary's volleyball team fought through the humidity and the lack of air conditioners on Aug. 27 and defeated Martin Luther in three straight sets to start off the season.
The St. Mary's volleyball team fought through the humidity and the lack of air conditioners on Aug. 27 and defeated Martin Luther in three straight sets to start off the season.
The preseason practice must have paid off, as St. Mary's got right down to business and took a four-point lead to begin the first set. Martin Luther fought back and took the lead 12-11 halfway through, but St. Mary's showed solid passing and great defense as the team regained the lead and took the first set 25-21.
St. Mary's showed no sign of struggle in the second set, as the team had a steady three-to-four point lead throughout. St. Mary's took advantage of several serving and unforced errors made by Martin Luther to take set two, 25-19.
The third set was an exciting one. St. Mary's once again showed great poise and took the lead early. The team had multiple runs of unanswered points and eventually had a 20-7 lead. But the game was far from over, as Martin Luther rallied back and was able to bring the score to a close 23-18. But St. Mary's was determined to not bring the game into a fourth set, and got the couple of points needed and ended the set 25-18.
It was Jen Walter's first win as Head Coach for the St. Mary's team and she said she was happy with the result.
"First win was great to get it under our belt," Walter said. "We all had high expectations and we're starting it off on the right note."
Leaders for St. Mary's include senior Bethany Berkner, who recorded 31 set assists and five aces. Senior Lexie Weiss had five digs and six aces, while senior Deonna Brinkman had six kills and three aces. Finally, junior Becca Schmitz recorded 10 kills on the night.
Another key player in the victory was senior Nikki Carr, who had crucial defensive hits throughout the game. Carr said she and her teammates had to stay strong mentally to keep control of the game because of the warm conditions inside St. Mary's gym.
"We were pretty determined," Carr said. "We all wanted to get home, take a shower and be done. We wanted to finish it in three."


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It's not easy to piss off a bunch of beer-guzzling darts players. On the whole, the barroom sport, popular in Los Angeles locales like Hollywood, Santa Monica and Woodland Hills, tends to attract mild-mannered, blue-collar guys, artists and musicians — people with sure hands and a hearty sense of humor who don't really give a damn.
But Dino M. Zaffina, a squat, well-groomed darts enthusiast with a blind left eye, who possesses a law degree and an Italian sense of respect, has a talent for pissing people off. So it was in the summer of 2010 that the two sides found themselves in a standoff.
Zaffina, a fairly new member of the Southern California Darts Association, or SCDA, was unhappy that his middle initial, M, had not been included on the league's website, which showcased the players' high scores of the week. On July 18, 2010, he sent an email to the league's president, Harvey Fischer, and several members of the league, expressing his displeasure.
"I do not ever allow anyone to misspell or mispronounce my name since it is obvious by its spelling, Dino M. Zaffina," Zaffina wrote, according to emails given to L.A. Weekly by several of the darts players. "... That being said, since my name always consists of a first name, middle initial and surname, for the purpose of the SCDA ONLY, I have allowed the use of D.M. Zaffina. Therefore, if my name is ever published on the SCDA website ... I will expect it to be spelled correctly."
To say that Zaffina is particular about the spelling and presentation of his name would be an understatement. He spouts on about it with the same fiery passion that one would normally associate with a discussion of civil rights or religious freedom. He has been known to refuse mail that doesn't bear his middle initial, and says he is battling the powerful Hollywood industry website IMDb.com to include his middle initial on its site, which states that he appeared on two episodes of the 1980s sitcom Alice.
But regrettably, the laid-back Los Angeles darts players, including Fischer — an older gentleman with the reputation of being a wiseass — didn't understand just how serious Zaffina was. Several members of the Southern California Darts Association pooh-poohed Zaffina and, following several nasty emails and squabbles over Zaffina's name in which it was clear how obnoxious the darts players found him, Fischer mailed him a $30 refund for his membership fee and gave him the boot.
Says former SCDA board member David Irete, "He was becoming a nuisance and pain in the ass and breaking the rules. He was threatening us, so we had to kick him out. He was being a cocksucker, and you can quote me on that, please."
Fischer and the SCDA board hoped they'd never hear from Zaffina or his middle initial ever again.
But he was hardly finished in the battle that started over his "M."
Conducting a simple public-records search, he discovered the league's Achilles' heel: Established in the mid-1960s and generally accepted as the oldest British-style darts league in the United States, the Southern California Darts Association had let its incorporated status lapse in 1977. It had never been renewed. To the players, there didn't seem to be any need.
Zaffina made his move. He legally incorporated as "Southern California Darts Association," without any apparent members, anointed himself both president and CEO, and then sued nearly 60 darts players and eight stunned Los Angeles–area bars where darts are played regularly. The accusation? That the players and the eight pubs had been engaging in "trade libel" and "unlawful business practices" by using the historic name "Southern California Darts Association," which Zaffina now legally controlled.
Through the courts, Zaffina all but brought the historic league to its knees. He even got many of the amazed bar owners to ban all references to the Southern California Darts Association whenever any of the players have a game at longtime spots such as the Robin Hood Pub in Sherman Oaks and Ye Olde King's Head pub in Santa Monica.
Says one well-known bar owner who did not wish to be identified for fear of retribution, "I'm weary of being involved with this guy because he's just been firing off lawsuits. Some of us wanted to fight, but these things can be very expensive ... [so] we came to an agreement we all could live with."
Zaffina, however, doesn't understand why everyone's so angry. He warned the darts players he'd come after them, but they didn't listen.
"Who the hell is he to tell me what to do?" Fischer tells the Weekly. "Why is he so special? I was just posting his name the way I do for everyone else. But he went bonkers" when Fischer left out his full name.
Zaffina finds it all perfectly normal. He says the "M" stands for "Martin," that he was named after the suave Rat Pack crooner Dean "Dino" Martin, and launches into a story about how his father, who also used a middle initial and died when Zaffina was 8, drilled into him the importance of being called by his full name and demanding that everyone oblige.
"My father always told me, 'That's the way people should address you,' " Zaffina says. "... And sure enough it stuck, I'll tell you that much."
The darts players are incredulous that Zaffina was able to obtain the league's historic name and are sickened at the thought that the whole thing started over leaving Zaffina's middle initial off a list of competition scores.
"We've had the SCDA name for more than 40 years," Fischer says. "Where does this upstart get the balls to take our name? I mean, who is this guy?"
Zaffina, 52, is a native of Southern California. He's a studio sound man, an actor and a licensed private investigator. Zaffina was blinded in his left eye in 2008 when he inadvertently fell off a stage and into a lighting pit while working on the set of Entertainment Tonight. He stands out at pubs because he carries a large attaché case filled with darts when he comes to play.
Outside of that, Zaffina is mostly a mystery.
"He never talked about himself and instead asked us questions," says Milan Sabata, a former SCDA board member. "And he was very generic about his job."
Zaffina's teammate, 30-year-old musician Nick Turpin, enjoyed playing with Zaffina, calling him "an older brother type" who didn't drink and would bring the guys pizza and pasta during the games. Not at all "what he turned out to be."
As Sabata tells it, when Zaffina first started playing pickup games in 2009 with him and a few others at the Robin Hood Pub in Sherman Oaks, Zaffina "was clean-cut, well-spoken but cocky and seemed very insecure about himself. Every time he threw a bad throw, he got embarrassed with a childish grin, wanting people to tell him it was OK. His parents were Italian and he has this way of talking about respect. He takes it very seriously. ... He spells the word 'respect' with his middle initial 'M.' "
When speaking, Zaffina occasionally peppers his sentences with legal jargon, which could be explained by the fact that he has a law degree, though he is not a member of the State Bar of California. It also could have something to do with the fact that Zaffina has been part of many lawsuits.
Since 1991, according to an online search of Los Angeles Superior Court records, Zaffina has been involved in at least 22 lawsuits, 18 of them as the plaintiff. They have ranged from small-claims cases to defamation and wrongful-termination claims.
In one case, for example, he sued Target, claiming he'd injured his toe on an escalator. In another case, Zaffina sued 20th Century Fox Films over failure to pay wages in a timely manner and for allegedly having fired him unfairly from the TV show Reba. In 2009, Zaffina's landlord, Zahra Taherkhanchi, sought a restraining order against him, claiming the rent was late and that he had started posting notes on her door four or five times a day and threatening that someone might set her home on fire.
"He gave me a great emotional distress," Taherkhanchi wrote in her legal complaint. "He wants to put too much pressure on me so I can have a nervous breakdown. ... I'm scared of [sic] my life."
The court found no credible threats of violence, however, and her request for a restraining order was immediately dismissed. Zaffina tells the Weekly he was unaware that she had filed for a restraining order.
Zaffina received some media attention in 1999, when he got into it with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local 695, a union for sound technicians. According to Variety, Zaffina, who had been an unsuccessful candidate for the office of business representative of Local 695, alleged that his opponent wrongfully used union money to make and distribute campaign literature.
Two months later, Zaffina sued the local, the winning candidate, and another candidate who ran against him. It became a convoluted web of lawsuits and countersuits, rife with nasty accusations and allegations, stretching across many years. The sound technician union's attorney, Helena Wise — who at one point was sued for defamation by Zaffina — has trouble boiling down the complex case.
"The master complaint got disposed of," she says, "that he would not be able to set forth proper causes of action. And then he filed additional lawsuits, so it's like this never-ending saga."
Wise is reluctant to discuss Zaffina further — for fear of being sued again, except to add, "If you ever failed to include his middle initial [in a mailing], he would return the envelope unopened."
Wise is not the only one hesitant to talk to the Weekly about Zaffina. Several people, including former darts players and an ex-girlfriend, said they were afraid to comment or didn't want to risk the chance of letting Zaffina re-enter their lives — and sue them. Most also warned the Weekly that Zaffina might sue the newspaper for writing about him.
Zaffina, however, disputes the idea that he's a litigious person, pointing to the fact that none of his lawsuits — most of which he eventually won or settled — was ever dismissed as frivolous.
"I go after people under the guidelines of the law because that's the way to do it ... ," Zaffina says. "When I have a legitimate claim against somebody, I go for it because that's the right thing to do and it's my prerogative. I live in a free country that says we have the right to seek redress of our grievances in a court of law, and thank God for that.
"I'm sure you've known plenty of passive people who just go, 'Oh well,' " he continues. "You can tell ... I'm not passive ... I'm going to do whatever the law says that I'm allowed to do."
In fact, Zaffina has even told the Weekly that he would sue "if anything came out wrong ..." in the story.
Zaffina's ability to inspire ire and fear, however, extends beyond the courtroom, and, as it turns out, the SCDA was not his first darts league.
In 2001, Zaffina was for a short time a board member of the Pacific Darts Association, which is based in Cypress, about 10 miles west of Anaheim.
"The last image I have of Dino is of him threatening to sue us," says Doug Tice, who's been in the Pacific league for 20 years and serves as its recording secretary. "He's a hard guy to forget."
Several members of the Pacific Darts Association declined to comment for fear of retribution. However, according to Zaffina and the league's then-president, Richard Lawrence, everything was running along smoothly until one day a player threatened to harm one of Zaffina's teammates during a match. Zaffina says he expressed concern to the board over some liability issues related to the threats, but that the league did not take strong enough action, so he decided to leave.
When asked whether he threatened to sue the Pacific Darts Association, Zaffina says that members Lawrence and Tice are lying, or perhaps misunderstood him at the time.
"I said, 'Guys, we could be sued,' " says Zaffina. "I certainly had no grounds to go after them at that point in time."
Lawrence, however, paints a more colorful picture.
Zaffina "issued threats of suing the board himself and talked of taking away people's houses following a judgment that he surely would win," Lawrence wrote in an email to the Weekly. "Some people got scared. ... Fortunately for the Pacific Darts Association, Dino chose to take what for him was the high road. He left the board and actually stopped playing in the PDA."
When Zaffina was in full swing as a member of the SCDA in 2010, his fellow darts players knew nothing about his legal track record or his history with the other league. But they were about to get a crash course.
About a month after Zaffina emailed Fischer and the league complaining about the presentation of his name on the website's high-scores list, Zaffina was upset again. This time, on Aug. 18, 2010, he emailed the league to say that his middle initial was not being included on the website's moving banner displaying players' scores. His gripe sparked a flurry of email responses from league members — everything from "Dino, blow it out your ASS :)" to the more tempered, "It's extremely unlikely anyone will be mislead [sic] as to who is on the results banner."
Frustrated by Fischer's refusal to accommodate him, Zaffina reached out for help to Milan Sabata, a thick-necked, soft-spoken Czechoslovakian plumber who sat on the league's board. As Sabata tells it, Zaffina called him at least five times after 8 p.m. on Aug. 19, 2010, demanding his name be spelled correctly or removed from the SCDA website by midnight.
"Then he starts threatening me," Sabata says. "He goes, 'How would you feel if your customers go online and see that your picture is on the child molester's website?' So I say, 'Dino, how can you do that?' And he said he had a way to do it, and he scared me." (Zaffina admits that he made a comment about the sex offender registry but vehemently denies that it was a threat.)
That night, as the clock raced toward midnight, Sabata says he frantically urged Fischer to take down Zaffina's name. But Fischer was watching a movie on TV and couldn't be bothered. Maybe after the flick was over, he told Sabata.
Growing more anxious, Sabata kept checking the website to see if Zaffina's name was still there. No changes. Then Sabata received an email from Zaffina:
"It's 12:01 a.m.," it said, "past the deadline."
It would be roughly another 20 minutes or so, Sabata says, before Zaffina's name was removed. At 8:15 a.m. the next day, Zaffina emailed the league, saying, "If you continue with this foolish behavior, as you have in the past with your refusal to spell my name correctly, I sure hope the SCDA and certain individuals have enough money to sustain a defense to what will be forthcoming."
On Aug. 29, 2011, David Irete was excited as he jammed through San Fernando Valley traffic on his way to the SCDA annual meeting at the Robin Hood Pub. A camera operator on Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, Irete also was a die-hard darts promoter and a member of the league's board, who was up for the position of SCDA president that very night.
As Irete neared the bar, he felt his cellphone begin to vibrate inside his pocket. He had a new email. It was not good news.
Zaffina, from whom many of the darts players and league officers had not heard in more than seven months, had blasted an email out to the SCDA members under the banner, "Press Release ... Southern California Darts Association Inc. Returns From the Dead After 34 Years."
In it, Zaffina announced that the SCDA, which had incorporated in 1966, was suspended by the state Franchise Tax Board in 1977 and now, after all these years, was finally being brought back to life by him, Dino M. Zaffina, as its new president and CEO.
"[T]he 'illegal' SCDA will no longer be operating anywhere in the United States of America," Zaffina's email read. "And, the men who claim to be board members of SCDA are devoid of any power. ... "
When Irete finished reading the message, he looked up from his phone and thought, "Holy shit, Dino has risen again."
That night at the Robin Hood, Irete, Harvey Fischer, Milan Sabata and Curtis Pierpoint, a residential construction worker, all talked briefly about Zaffina's latest news. They, along with other players, decided there was nothing they could do about it right away, so they carried on with the planned administrative matters and league elections. Irete was named president; Pierpoint won the vice president slot.
"Because of the way [Zaffina] had acted in the past," Fischer says, "I kinda took it lightly."
But to Zaffina, it had long been a serious matter.
About a year earlier, after Fischer had refunded Zaffina's league fees (Zaffina says he cleverly never cashed the check and was not kicked out of the league but rather allowed his league membership to expire at the end of the year), Zaffina asked California's secretary of state for a copy of the SCDA incorporated bylaws. He quickly discovered the SCDA's corporate status had been suspended in 1977 and that it had never been legally revived.
It's impossible to know exactly what thoughts spun through Zaffina's mind the moment he uncovered this bit of news, but on Aug. 24, 2010, he sent a four-page letter, heavily accented with bold type and underlinings, to the unincorporated league, its members and its sponsors. To Zaffina, the letter was to serve as a heads-up. It spelled out that the SCDA had been claiming to operate with the powers and rights of a corporation without actually having legal corporate status, and therefore was operating illegally and in violation of the California Revenue and Tax Code.
Again, the unincorporated SCDA members largely ignored the message.
"In our minds," Pierpoint says, "it was just another in a long line of threats. We had been unincorporated for more than 30 years and were going along just fine as a club, and so when his letter came along, we didn't think much about it."
On Jan. 3, 2011, Zaffina made his next move. He legally incorporated Southern California Darts Association and then filed four subsidiaries — SCDA, So Cal Darts Association, So Cal Darts and SCDA Products. Zaffina would wait eight months, say many of the darts players, before telling them. However, one of the oldest and most prestigious names in the world of darts now belonged to him.
According to author and darts historian Dan William Peek, the SCDA was started by British and Irish expatriates living in the L.A. area in the late 1950s. The group incorporated in 1966 and, according to Pierpoint, swelled to nearly 5,000 members during the 1980s. The association sold merchandise, hosted two international tournaments and raked in nearly $100,000 a year.
Recent times have not been so kind. Thanks to tougher DUI laws and a ban on smoking inside bars, Pierpoint says, the unincorporated league has dwindled to roughly 100 members and brought in between $2,000 and $3,000 a year, all of which went toward paying for equipment storage and trophies at the end of each season.
None of the darts players can recall why the SCDA decided in 1977 not to renew its corporate status. Pierpoint remembers that the issue came up a couple of times during the 1990s but was always voted down.
"We didn't see any real need in it," he says. "Yes, we probably should have filed taxes, but because we're mostly blue-collar knuckleheads who just want to drink beer and throw darts and have fun, we operate more like an informal club. It was ignorant bliss until Dino came along."
After informing the players that he'd incorporated SCDA, Zaffina issued several press releases and a cease-and-desist letter urging them to stop playing matches using the SCDA name.
Finally, on Sept. 26, Zaffina filed a lawsuit against more than 60 named defendants, including Irete, Fischer and Pierpoint. Milan Sabata, who through sheer fear had helped get Zaffina's name removed from the SCDA website the year before, was conspicuously absent from the lawsuit.
Essentially, Zaffina claimed that the unincorporated league members were injuring his actual SCDA company by continuing to operate. He said he was trying to run his league as a for-profit enterprise but could not so long as the unincorporated members were using and trampling on the SCDA's good name.
The following day, Sept. 27, Zaffina fired off another press release, this one informing the defendants that they were on the hook for a $395 court filing fee and telling them how to avoid litigation and further damages.
Over the next several weeks, Zaffina bombarded the darts players with nine press releases (none of which was sent to the media). They included court deadlines, examples of burdensome discovery requests and dollar amounts for how much each defendant would be responsible for paying in order to battle him in court.
"Prepare for a lengthy and costly litigation that may possibly last in excess of two-years and cost each defendant approximately $50,000.00," stated one. "There is no other possible way out," read another.
To many, including darts player Bill Lynch, the press releases sounded like a shakedown. A successful musician, Lynch says he was furious that Zaffina was effectively destroying his beloved darts club. He had plenty of money to hire attorneys and go toe-to-toe with Zaffina in court, so Lynch decided to plunge neck-deep into the fray.
"How could anyone not see his lawsuit as malicious?" Lynch asks. "He's a menace to society and needed to be stopped."
Lynch and his lawyer, Michael Zuk, went so far as to file a cross-complaint against Zaffina, essentially accusing him of blackmail. A judge, however, struck it down, ruling that there was "no conclusive evidence of extortion."
At one point, Lynch says, he was willing to settle with Zaffina, but he asked for a deadline extension in order to have time to contact all of the numerous other defendants. He says Zaffina refused him the extension, so any potential deal fell apart.
"It's like dealing with a little kid who wants to play with his football and gets mad when the other kids are playing with their football," Zuk says. "It's like he wants to be the lone emperor of darts in Southern California."
Why did Zaffina do it? That seems to be the million-dollar question among the darts players.
If you ask Zaffina, he'll say he's a businessman, that he's always had some big ideas on how to run a for-profit darts league, and that snatching up the SCDA name was akin to nabbing a brand name such as Snickers or Campbell's Soup when their owners fell asleep at the wheel.
"Clearly," he stated in a court declaration, the SCDA name "is not The Coca-Cola Company, but what smart businessperson would not acquire a corporation under the name The Coca-Cola Company if that company was so foolish as to let their legal status be suspended by the state's executive branch that regulated corporations?"
Zaffina dismisses the notion that he was motivated by sour grapes, proudly explaining how he told the darts players in August 2010 that their group was not incorporated yet gallantly refrained from acquiring the name until January.
"If they're angry at me because I'm a good businessman," he says, "and because I dot all my I's and cross all my T's and I follow the law, then that's their problem. They had the opportunity for a good four months to get to a lawyer or do it themselves and renew the corporation. They should be angry at themselves, not me."
But most of the players aren't buying it, even the ones who played with Zaffina and say they liked the guy.
"Dino's managed to completely disassemble the old SCDA and ruined it for a lot of guys," says Zaffina's former teammate, Nick Turpin. "To me, it was him getting back at Harvey and these [other] guys. It's ridiculous. What a dick."
Despite his insistence that the SCDA will be a full-fledged business, Zaffina is not tipping his hand. His only disclosure appears in court papers, in which he says he plans to operate a series of steel and soft-tip darts leagues, tournaments and other darts-related ventures.
"It's going to be much bigger than anything anybody could imagine," he tells the Weekly. "That's all I'm going to say. The goal is much bigger than anything these people could have even fathomed."
There is some speculation among the darts players that Zaffina's endeavor, if it's real, will be conducted mostly online. After all, they say, what local is going to want to play in his league?
"I find it ironic," says Fischer, "because he says he wants to make money and promote a darts league, but all the people he's suing would be his clients. He's a bloody idiot."
As far as the players go, they share a collective sense of brotherhood and doom. Most of the pubs they play in have decided to avoid litigation and agreed to Zaffina's terms, which include making sure that no one throws darts there under the SCDA name. Some of the pubs, including Ye Olde King's Head in Santa Monica, have posted signs saying as much.
The darts players are not sure what will come of the lawsuit against them, but they know Zaffina has legally obtained the SCDA name and, on that front at least, they've been licked.
"Dino won," Irete says. "He stopped us from playing. He put fear in too many people's minds and hearts."
Says Pierpoint, "It's really sad. Dino has hurt everyone who played in the league, all because he was trying to screw a few people he was pissed at."
Irete and Pierpoint both say plans are in the works to create a new league for the darts players, complete with new schedules, a proper tax ID and, of course, a new name that will be legally incorporated.
At one point, the players wanted to start fresh under the title Los Angeles Darts Association. Sabata says he mentioned the idea over the summer at the group's annual meeting and then posted the suggestion on Facebook on Sept. 7.
Two days later, according to Internet records, Zaffina bought the domain name losangelesdartsassociation.com. Less than a month later, he also bought the .net and .org versions of the name.
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Zaffina denies he ever knew about the players' intent to form under the Los Angeles moniker and says there is no proof that he saw Sabata's Facebook post or that anyone sent him a link to it.
"Even if I was clairvoyant and I knew," he says, "I still have the right to purchase them."
Which, while technically true, are exactly the kinds of words that can piss off a bunch of beer-guzzling darts players.
Reach the writer at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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