Squashed commit of the following:

commit 56c46974867f0b77d9d75f751019d3d666998926
Author: Tilottama Gaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Tue Sep 2 18:05:08 2014 -0400

    Added ability to automatically populate timestamps in .conf

commit 6ba08262073e769e363d580ab0b86a062c0d9164
Merge: eb266f5 41f2562
Author: tilogaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Tue Sep 2 12:21:10 2014 -0400

    Merge pull request #16 from GeorgeJahad/george/to_json_fix

    Attempt at fixing the to_json issue.

commit 41f2562b19112017cdf202b99e5dcb72f0ba375b
Author: George Jahad <github@blackbirdsystems.net>
Date:   Fri Aug 29 17:13:28 2014 -0700

    Attempt at fixing the to_json issue.

commit eb266f57b031ff995332f497dfdbc439c915d184
Merge: 85725a6 ddec534
Author: tilogaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Fri Aug 29 16:02:53 2014 -0400

    Merge pull request #15 from GeorgeJahad/master

    Merging George's review comments fixes

commit ddec534a66917b23212f48156cd1973630795eff
Author: George Jahad <github@blackbirdsystems.net>
Date:   Fri Aug 29 12:22:59 2014 -0700

    fixed json metric name; removed hash_metric default; @format is no longer a config var, but is now determined by json/hash metric values.

commit e0ee7e49ddc948809efb7ee8377f532cf263d915
Author: George Jahad <github@blackbirdsystems.net>
Date:   Fri Aug 29 11:35:59 2014 -0700

    Fixed indentation.

commit 85725a6179959395d544aedee17b993426c33c32
Merge: ec3e8b2 7303f20
Author: tilogaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Fri Aug 29 11:11:49 2014 -0400

    Merge pull request #14 from GeorgeJahad/master

    Merging George's changes

commit 7303f207329a418cbb5fbf45e80045e24bdb31bf
Author: George Jahad <github@blackbirdsystems.net>
Date:   Thu Aug 28 16:57:05 2014 -0700

    Added some defaults

commit acf47e5c6c903fd1fcdf36c404bd40d109f4c150
Author: George Jahad <github@blackbirdsystems.net>
Date:   Thu Aug 28 16:55:25 2014 -0700

    Now includes an actual variable in the json string, so you can see it.
    Also fixed the key name to json_metric.

commit 24c5cec3e825987108f2edac1d40f1c7f7bbb205
Author: George Jahad <github@blackbirdsystems.net>
Date:   Thu Aug 28 16:42:01 2014 -0700

    Removed tabs

commit ec3e8b280fa7e920389bfb3ab9c0bca63850dc95
Merge: fc742c6 af4ffde
Author: Tilottama Gaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Thu Aug 28 17:08:56 2014 -0400

    manually merging george's ttl changes

commit af4ffde9c18faa6eb62c123062df4e76eb497772
Author: George Jahad <github@blackbirdsystems.net>
Date:   Thu Aug 28 13:11:34 2014 -0700

    Add an overrideable, default config ttl value.

commit fc742c686de0f38b6fec7f2c7ce278334119a219
Author: Tilottama Gaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Thu Aug 28 16:02:42 2014 -0400

    Documented each field

commit 0b756e982c302c888d0bed05d0c5e7c56f756b3d
Author: Tilottama Gaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Thu Aug 28 13:10:29 2014 -0400

    Adding support for including only numeric metrics for now

commit f8998882e16c01741b63fd6439175bce75ce26ee
Merge: 1d58faa aa3c086
Author: tilogaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Thu Aug 28 11:44:06 2014 -0400

    Merge pull request #12 from GeorgeJahad/george/logstash-changes

    fixed the names of the class, and the name of the json_metrics

commit aa3c0869cab59e7442fd76a6419b37b0d091a35d
Author: George Jahad <github@blackbirdsystems.net>
Date:   Wed Aug 27 17:37:37 2014 -0700

    fixed the names of the class, and the name of the json_metrics

commit 1d58faa837cd7faada58651b62616c37078c804b
Author: Tilottama Gaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Wed Aug 27 17:58:58 2014 -0400

    using string formatting

commit e608e9f36cdefe80db03278634b9bbb675df36a6
Author: Tilottama Gaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Wed Aug 27 17:53:09 2014 -0400

    fixed review comment - do not need content type to be configurable, since it always should be json for bf

commit 759cfa43f55a34afec88bc5117332681e559cc61
Author: Tilottama Gaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Wed Aug 27 17:45:23 2014 -0400

    adding the right configuration for testing hash metrics

commit 9605b0f7a95708c532b3a06800af0466012ff1cc
Author: Tilottama Gaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Wed Aug 27 17:41:14 2014 -0400

    added some error checking for different formats, added conf file to test hash metrics

commit fd008febec9c8f7977abbdbbed16cb2a55849180
Author: Tilottama Gaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Wed Aug 27 17:12:25 2014 -0400

    adding a hack to process json in a way that blueflood will like

commit 2dda798d658ad27cc317f94324d8ecf336c375fc
Author: Tilottama Gaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Wed Aug 27 16:35:39 2014 -0400

    adding the ability to process dictionary metrics

commit 87b306c738dabc2e455d045d578bf820f39690fa
Author: Tilottama Gaat <tilottama.gaat@rackspace.com>
Date:   Wed Aug 27 14:33:22 2014 -0400

    adding logstash plugin for blueflood
Merge branch 'master' of github.com:tilogaat/blueflood