They say it's your birthday...

...well it's Greg's birthday too yeah!  We decided to celebrate Greg's birthday a little early this year since Pinback was playing in Salt Lake last weekend.  Pinback is one of those bands that can take me back to the early days of our relationship every time I listen to them.  Pinback was the first concert Greg and I went to when we were dating.  A few months after we got married they came back into town and we won tickets to see them from this cute little record store which has since gone out of business. 
When we found out they were going to be playing in Salt Lake so close to Greg's special day, we knew we had to go.  Greg booked a room in the Little America Hotel and we made a weekend trip out of it. 
The concert was amazing.  The opening band was actually good, which almost never happens.  Pinback was fabulous as always.  People kept throwing their clothes up on the stage and the lead singer, Rob Crowe, said if anyone wanted to throw their clothes on the stage he would wear them.  There was one caveat to his statement, he wouldn't wear any undies.  Rob first grabbed a plaid flannel shirt and tied it around his neck and ran around the stage with his arms out like he was a superhero in flight.  He then picked up a grody gray sweatshirt and draped it over his head while he played the next song.  What a good sport.
There is this one song, "Prog," every time I am riding the Clarkston-Newton loop and I get to my favorite part of the ride I make sure to turn on Prog and coast down the hill with a big smile on my face.  I was really hoping they would play that song.  Every song was great but I just kept waiting for Prog.  Finally, the second to the last song during their encore, they played it.  Ahh.  The only thing that would have made the concert better is if they played for another hour or two.
The weather forecast called for snow the next day, so we got up and got on the road early.  We were hungry and wanted to grab a quick bite for breakfast so Greg had the bright idea to go to the McDonald's smack dab in the middle of sketchy Salt Lake City.  We decided to dine in since we haven't wanted to eat in the new car.  Bad idea.  The whole dining room was full of homeless people who were looking for a break from the Utah winter weather. We decided eating in the car was not so aversive anymore and headed out the door.  As soon as we exited the building we were asked by a group of men for spare change.  We gave them what we had and headed to the parking lot in front of Brewvies and Dr. John's for a quiet place to eat.  This funny little seagull was drinking from a puddle in the parking lot and I thought maybe he'd like some bacon/egg/cheese bagel.  He didn't, but his seagull buddies certainly did.  One of them even jumped up and caught a delicious morsel in the air. 
The drive was great until about Brigham City.  We finally had had enough of blowing snow and got off at the Tremonton/Garland exit.  Those roads had not even been touched by a plow.  We took the drive really slow and made it home in one piece.
All in all, it was a pretty great weekend.