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We had an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.6 at 8:04 p.m. this evening. Here’s the quake’s seismological data from the U.S. Geological Survey website, where one can track quakes in real-time (well, almost) in the Bay Area.

The epicenter’s just south of where we live. I was in the kitchen washing dishes when the bay window started to shake. The kids ran for cover under the dining table. The shaking ended after several seconds. Everyone’s fine and nothing broke or fell off the shelves.

Here’s the earliest news report from the San Jose Mercury News. It includes reactions from the local populace soon after the article was posted.

(But of course, Twitterers like Mark and I got our reactions up on the web even more quickly. Heh.)

Update: My tweets get included in these posts (one, two) by someone who tracked Twitter posts about the quake immediately after it happened.

• KQED Food Blog: Bay Area Bites: Breaking Fast Filipino breakfast is one of the breakfasts covered in this piece. (via magandamagazine.wordpress.com)

Gerry’s Grill in Union City and a UFO. I didn’t notice the hovering speck until I d’nloaded the pic from my camera phone.

There’s now a Gerry’s Grill on this side of the Pacific. It’s a welcome addition to the selection of Filipino restaurants here in the Bay Area. It’s a little bit more upscale than the average Pinoy hole-in-the-wall turo-turo diner. Decor and choice of furniture are decent. One wall is lined with capiz-adorned panel doors. A nice little water fountain is built into the wall to the right and a bar occupies the front-end of the restaurant. I was greeted, however, by a familiar smell when I entered the place. It’s that certain scent you smell when you enter a Filipino grocery store or when you first crack open a newly arrived balikbayan box. It sort of smells banig-like, you know what I mean? (Some Thai restaurants have it too.) It definitely adds to the authenticity. For sure though, you won’t see any “Hello, Garci” pre-paid phone card posters or Philippine government-issued calendars stapled onto the maitre d’s podium. Which brings me to the staff — they’re mostly non-Filipino of different stripes, sort of what you’d see at the local TGIF or Chili’s. Oh and the food? It was okay, I guess. I’m not much of a gourmand so I’m not going to elaborate on it further. I just remember having kare-kare, pancit and sisig. It was quite filling.

Fremont is my adopted city. I moved to this East Bay city soon after I got married a few years ago. Previous to this I lived, studied and worked in San Francisco. There was a period where I also lived in San Pablo but I practically spent all my waking hours in the City by the Bay.

Before moving to Fremont, I viewed this city 50 miles from Frisco rather disparagingly. It was always that far-away suburban town where nothing happened. It has none of the cultural significance and excitement of San Francisco. Its night life is virtually non-existent. The better malls and theaters are found in neighboring towns. So as you can imagine my move to Fremont was accompanied with some trepidation. But I did it for the wife anyway. She grew up here and wanted to stay close to her family.

It took me awhile to get acclimated to Fremont. My first couple of years living here I still held a job in downtown San Francisco, commuting there everyday by BART. The transition to becoming a full-fledged Fremont man came when I found work locally at the HQ of a wireless retailer. I believe the Lord had gradually taken me away from the city that had been host to the decadent, hedonistic lifestyle of my bachelor days. No longer was I to be exposed to the temptations of a place that took focus away from the things that mattered in life.

That is why the move to Fremont turned out to be a blessing. The City of Fremont is a family-oriented community, and as such, it fits me and my family quite nicely. It actually has a lot going for it. Really. Aside from being in the Silicon Valley where tech jobs can be found, it was named the “best city in America to raise children” and it ranks as one of the top 10 safest cities to live in the U.S. Having started as an agricultural town, Fremont is an odd mixture of residential areas, farm land and high tech business parks. It has become a favorite test bed for technologies such as cable internet service, digital cable and digital phone lines. It has also grown to be one of the most diverse communities in the Bay Area, being home to a large number of Asian immigrants mostly from India and China (many Filipinos live in adjacent Union City).

Here are other interesting facts about Fremont:

• Cyberdyne Systems, the building blown up in T2, is located in Fremont
• Charlie Chaplin shot many of his films, including The Tramp, in the Niles district of Fremont
• Kristi Yamaguchi hails from Fremont
• MC Hammer’s infamous $12 million mansion is located in Fremont (can’t touch this)
• home to the largest Afghan community in the US (dubbed Little Kabul)
• Leland Stanford, former governor of California and resident of Fremont, considered Fremont as a possible site for Stanford University (oh how that would’ve changed Fremont!)
• Dumbarton Bridge, which connects Fremont to the Peninsula, is the first built of the Bay’s seven bridges, pre-dating both the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge
• Puck from MTV’s Real World is from Fremont (not a good thing)