Have Goal; Need advice to create arduino sensor...

Thanks Pauly. I (back) ordered a started kit from adafruit earlier along with a gps and gps data logger shield and a couple of sensors for temperature, light, etc.

Sorry to be so clueless about wireless, but how do I receive data from the xbee and get it into python? I read the description, but it wasn't totally clear if the xbee explorer usb was for programming the xbee or for recieving its transmissions.

Is it

arduino+xbee <---> [pc <--usb-->xbee]

I found a python-xbee library on google code, but it looks a bit outdated... Do I hook up an xbee to my computer...

I think this post is about as good as I could find http and-then forums.trossenrobotics.com/tutorials/how-to-diy-128/xbee-basics-3259

Thank you much,
Blair