[TerryMason]

I don't know that I have the answers to your drop down question. I was just going to steal some html from this page (if you click on the "quick links" drop down on this page, I would just hack that up and use it). I'm guessing that means image background for a cell. I'd probably want a similar thing for the google ad.

as for the new header image, I'm not so sure about it. I think the blending is still a bit rough. I like just the two images. Maybe you can make a hard stop at each photo edge, instead of a gradient, and use a table with a repeating pixel thing. I'm just throwing this stuff out. I was a horrible designer when I tried - always much better at the server stuff.