OSM2PGSQL

After getting mapnik installed and running I realized:

1. generate_tiles/generate_xml (and the rest of the render utilities) are really necessaryfor rendering OSM through mapnik. Therefore, you must download both mapnik through the mapnik site but also the mapnik OSM rendering tools which you can get through SVN at http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/rendering/mapnik/
2. you must download world coastlines to get the osm/mapnik utilities to run as detailed here (if you're getting an error about 'world_boundaries', that's why)
3. you must use OSM2PGSQL to import your osm data into postgres ... you can do this through osmosis, but it won't work

Helpful hints with OSM2PGSQL

1. you must run the included .sql in order to create the proper spatial reference information for the projection mapnik likes
2. you must create the database with a postgis template
3. you might need to export through JSOM and encode as UTM8 ... I did this as a safeguard this time and it worked ... if you're having trouble, try this

Related errors:
failed: ERROR: AddGeometryColumns() - invalid SRID
CONTEXT: SQL statement "SELECT AddGeometryColumn('','', $1 , $2 , $3 , $4 , $5 )"
PL/pgSQL function "addgeometrycolumn" line 4 at SQL statement

relation "planet_osm_polygon" does not exist