Early this morning, a fiber optic cable from Santa Cruz to San Francisco area is severed.

When I woke up at 5 a.m. (Apr. 9, 2009) for water, I found the network is down for a while, but I had no idea about what is wrong actually. After I got to the lab, the network connection was still not work. I checked the connection status, and traceroute results tell me that the network is down out of UCSC.

The official website of UCSC said that a cable is severed, and the network was only available inter UCSC. I pondered there may be a place in downtown able to access Internet, so I took the bus, got off campus and asked several coffee shops. Disappointedly, all shops said the network was all down in the whole downtown, including the tele-network. So, the whole Santa Cruz county became an Abandoned world virtually.

I finally decided to stay in a coffee shop to do some console works. During those hours, I found some interesting phenomenon, there were fewer customers using computers, and nobody using a cellphone for communication on street. Instead, more people talked and read and listened to the radio broadcast.

It is an interesting and joyful scene, and indeed another kind of peace. However, I still hope the network service can come back as soon as possible. (Well, the network is back around midnight...)

BTW, I think this is the day I listen to the radio for longest time during my stay in USA.