And remember the big power outage that hit New York City on a lovely 90 degree day? And the rolling power blackouts in California during the "summer of Enron"?

What can you do for emergency power?

Well, a nifty gizmo is a power inverter. It converts electricity from a 12 volt power source, such as your car, into 120 volts to run regular home electrical devices. Small inverters plug into the cigar lighter. Bigger ones connect directly to the car's battery with clamps like on jumper cables used to jump start cars with dead batteries.

They range in power rating from about 25 watts (about $15) to as much as 5000 watts (around $600), with models in between with ratings like 150 watts, 400 watts, 1250 watts, etc. So a 400 watt model could run a few 100 watt lamps in your home during a power outage. Also things like laptop computers, phone answering machines, chargers to recharge cell phones and so forth.

Power inverters are also handy for camping and boating. You can run little doohickeys like electric razors when you're in the middle of nowhere.

All in all, a very handy thing to have which can give a lot of peace of mind.

But get one now, 'cause there sell out after the power goes out!