first pull request

hi guys!

so this is a pull request. it's a chance to let everyone involved see what code you've changed that you want to add in to the project.

ideally, before merging with master, you'll want to wait to get feedback from at least two of us.

if it looks good, comment: +1

and if it merges cleanly merge it in. or perhaps for now, i can act as the maintainer and be the final say on what goes in.

i'm going to go ahead and merge this one in since it has a ton of stuff in it. but feel free to leave comments if you want. typically, a good pull request / branch should be one feature or part of one feature and kept quite small... so it's easy to review!! :)

wooo! :cactus: :hatched_chick: :ocean: 

-nick