I can't quite let go of tables for layout yet, till I really know more what I'm doing. I know it's not the modern way, but will it cause me rendering problems in browsers?
I added valign="top" to the container td tag as you suggested and it looks MUCH better, THANK YOU!
Now the page doesn't stretch on down forever as it did when I used the 150% bottom padding solution.
Two little issues still though:
1) in FireFox the bottom line of the form ends just below the form fields, but in Safari it stretches on down way below the form fields to the bottom of the page. Is there a way to make it behave in Safari the way it behaves in FireFox?
2) And how can I make that right column to be just a little taller than the form it contains, because the column itself is a bit too tall still.
Here's the link again with updated embedded styles, so you can see exactly how it is now after applying the fix you suggested.
column_issue.php
THANK YOU!!!!!!!