…or cell phones … or land lines … or television.

It’s true! Santa Cruz is officially back to basics, just like it was when the Mission of Santa Cruz was founded, September 25, 1791 by Father Fermin Lasuen.

The facts according to KSBW.com :

– An outage knocked out a Verizon land line, cell phone and 911 emergency services to thousands at about 2 a.m. last night.
– Fiber optic lines were cut at Monterey Highway and N. Blossom Hill Road.
– The event is being treated as a criminal investigation.
– 50,000 Verizon phone and cell service customers are without service.
– 36 Verizoncellsites went down, causing the biggest outage to date.
– My BB was non-functional during my Santa Cruz to Sunnyvale commute.

Question? Did I miss being connected…hmmm, no, I enjoyed my eclectic mix of iTune downloads via my rockin’ car stereo system.

Okay, not exactly like 1791.

Anyone else affected?

The most used quote of the day at Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco: “If you love something, set it free.” Of course, “it” means content. Certainly the phrase is a bit hokey, but both Scott Monty, Social Media man of Ford, and Bob Buch, Digg executive, thought it relevent enough to share in their 50 minute sessions yesterday.

This isn’t a revolutionary thought, but still seems to be a big stumbling block for many corporate communication and legal departments. Sage advice to consider about the company brand from Maggie of the Social Media Group: “You are what your customers say you are.” … And as we all now know, they will say it whether your company engages or not.

check out thefordstory.com … Another noteworthy fact: Ford is the only big three automotive makers that DIDN’T take bailout money. That’s pretty cool.