installing mysql and ruby gems using macports problems

I've spent the past several hours trying to deal with errors when installing mysql and some ruby gems using macports. There are already a ton of guides out there, but none of the ones I read said anything about the following issues:

- you won't be able to start your mysql database unless you restart your machine after installing mysql via macports

- if you're installing any ruby gems, eg. sudo gem install -y rake and you're getting the following error:

Bulk updating Gem source index for: http://gems.rubyforge.org ERROR: could not find rake locally or in a repository

It's because you forgot to "source ~/.profile"

I hope this helps someone.