Date and Calendar configuration

I am trying to set up and implement Date 6x-2.4 and Calendar 6x-2.7 on a Drupal 6.20 installation. I believe these modules will do what the client wants, but I am having some difficulties with configuration. This is for a craft gallery that has events that span over consecutive weekends and also over month long installations as well as monthly featured artists.

I initially was using the modules straight out of the box. I tried to set up events that span a given duration like a month, but they were not showing up that way in all browsers. Then I used Date Tools and set up a new calendar. I figured out how to use multi-day. However, on day and week views they do not show the event spanning the desired hours and the entries are stacked. They only show up at the start time. I found this post http://drupal.org/node/931392 and started to try to use the patch, because I liked how the patch presented the data. At the end of the post it states the presentation style is incorporated into Multiday submodule. To make them appear the way the patch displays, is that all css?

In the "Upcoming" block provided, is there a way to only show the initial event instead each day of the event? I suppose I can try to set up another display within the view or a separate view for that.

I also had this problem http://drupal.org/node/1039910 and found a workaround by implementing comment #8

Here is a link to the site http://shopcedarcreek.com/drupal/calendar-event_date/2011-04. I am only asking because I have spent five days trying to figure all this out. I have read and viewed numerous posts, issues and videos regarding implemention and am getting frazzled.