Power was out along the West Shore, in Tahoe City, and along the North Shore eastward to Tahoe Vista for over 30 hours through New Year's Eve. The outage happened at just before noon on December 31st and continued through the evening hours of January 1st, leaving residents, businesses and visitors scrambling for information, food, heat and gas and changing New Year's Eve plans.

On Saturday the power company told local residents that power would be restored before New Year's Eve partying started, but power remained out through the New Year.

Gardner turned to the Internet to research mothers' clubs in the area. She couldn't find any.

"I swore to myself I would do something to change it when I could manage it," said Gardner.

Three years later, Gardner did just that. In May 2004 she founded the Tahoe Mothers' Club, a network of local parents designed to offer support and provide educational programs and activities for families. The club quickly grew from an initial 45 members to its current 150.

I'm not the only one who's paranoid about law enforcement, especially when it resembles Haiti's Touton Macoutes. According to a current poll, 11 million American adults view the government as their enemy. Fortunately, only 10,000 of these people are members of armed militia groups of which there are at least 224 now in operation.