OpenHAB and LIRC - An Easy Guide: RasLIRC

I've been working on our new home office, and part of the design includes a lot of electronic bells and whistles (shocker, right?)  Well all those bells and whistles need a way to control them.  I already use OpenHAB for my home automation, so it seemed like a good fit to expand that into the office.  However the documentation out on the InterWebs for integrating IR devices via LIRC was spotty.  So I saw the gap, and filled it!