For those of you who have pulled the head in the car..
 

What did you do to make sure the oil/coolant passageways in the block stay clean of carbon and gasket junk that builds up after you pull the head? I've scraped most of it off at this point but as I was initially pulling the head a small amount of crap fell down in. Any methods to remove this such as using a vacuum or does it not really matter?

You can just blow compressed air into the holes. Make sure you have something to cover the holes like a rag or old towel. This way, your garage ceiling, windshield, and every other surrounding object doesn't get covered by coolant. Learned this from experience..