is glue dead? doesn't seem to be much activity in here.
not sure it's 'the way' to do this, but in case someone else needs it
down the road:
i set a class property for $this->logged_in and just use this in the
template (passing in the value of class::logged_in() to smarty:
{if $logged_in}
<li><a href="/logout/">Logout</a></li>
{else}
<li><a href="/signin/">Sign In</a></li>
{/if}