[sperry]

Matt, another way to think of red-shift:

You know the doppler effect on sound right? Higher pitch as something approaches then lower pitch as it goes away. Well, light does the same thing at extremely high speeds, the wavelength of the light coming off an object is "higher pitch" (bluer) as it approaches, and "lower pitch" (redder) as it departs.

Like Nick said, red-shift is only observeable on a cosmic scale. Scientists can point telescopes at distant stars and determin how fast they're moving away from us by measuring the red-shift of the known color of burning hydrogen. The fact that everything is moving away from everything else is one of the things that points towards evidence of a big bang.