Mike,
Your going to have fun! The 50 1.8 is a very nice lens and its also great for portraits
My main use for that lens was for comet hunting, however the focal length proved too short for that task especially with increased competition with others (including the new STEREO solar mission). Now I am using 200 and 300 mm lenses to try and have some hope of finding something ahead of others!
The 28 2.8 was purchased as a kit that came with the 50 (which also included a zoom and a Canon 630). The first thing you notice is how small and light it is, it hardly extends past the flash on the 350D so makes an ideal walkaround lens. Incidentally the combined weight of the 28 and 50 lenses is problably less than his Sigma 17-70!
There are plenty of examples from these lenses on my webpage.
Anyway enough of my rambling I have a box to go and post
Terry