I appreciate everyone's help here. Thank you all so much. I'm really excited about getting my project off the ground. I've gone ahead and exchanged my arduino R3 for a new one.
I'm a bit nervous though about compiling and uploading from the mac with Mountain Lion. It's bricked one board that was working fine before and a second board that I picked up at the store afterwards.
Does anyone have any experience with successfully deploying from Arduino 1.0.1 on Macintosh Mountain Lion? I would love to hear about it.
I'm considering getting an ethernet shield to deploy with since I seem to be having difficulty with the USB method.
I'm also planning to take this class to see if the teacher can give me some guidance.
http://www.3rdward.com/3rdwardclasses/physical-computing-with-arduino.html
If anyone can point me in a direction that might help me move further along with this I would greatly appreciate it.