Whew~ Thanks a lot Necro & Rantz.
Uh, I just have one more question. I have a really stupid looking flourish as a place holder til I find something that looks better ... the problem is that it's placed so ridiculously close to the menu that the bounding box of the image actually overlaps the menu. Because of this, in any place the bounding box overlaps the menu the menu cannot be clicked / isn't activated. ie. If I hover the mouse (or click) on the red area I highlighted on the attached image, the navigation menu doesn't respond.