Theme development

I've spent all day trying to figure this out;

I have a user profile with a custom field, let's say 'Animals', where users can tick checkboxes for what animals they own, and I want to display them in their user profiles. I'm using Contemplates. When I try to print them, they come out like this:

---
Animals:
Dog
Cat
Hamster
Rabbit
---

However, I would like it to display like this:

---
Animals: Dog, Cat, Hamster, Rabbit
---

Or even like this, if at all possible:

I have been somewhat tweaking various things... mostly in the andreas01 and andreas09 theme.

One thing I can not figure out in those themes is how to adjust the width of the left/right column.

In Andreas09, the middle col seems to adjust its size to fit the window. But when I fiddle with the CSS...

#leftside,#rightside {
margin:0;
padding:0 10px 10px;
width:165px;
}

width and set it to 300px, for example, the col does not get wider, merely the text runs into the middle column.

I'm working on some node styling at the moment and I don't like the way $terms are being output. It's a list with (at least for this case) several redundant classes. I'd like to clean this up, but how would I override the theme function for this case only?

I've created a node-forum.tpl.php file in order to customize the look of my forum posts. However I need help in figuring out how to pull in some user variables for display.

These variables are for the poster, of course, and not for the user viewing the node. For example, I'd like to display the member since, # of posts, and profile info such as location and perhaps a link to their blog.
A tall order I'm sure. The $picture is already taken care of, as it is a variable already available to the template.

I have this code so far:

Hi Everyone,
Not sure if this is the place to post it but I was wondering, I'm new to drupal and have been given the task of being an end user developer of www.stopbush2007.org . In trying to make the site look a bit better I have seemingly caused the graphic at the top to dissapear, is there any way this can be fixed? Your help is much appreciated.
Thanks
Raff

We implemented the Glossy Blue Theme onto a news magazine site: http://newsroom.byuh.edu

Fortunately, all other page links work fine except for the Home Page, where the calendar is located at the bottom.

Wondering if anyone had any suggestion. I am a intern for the webteam.

Thanks.
Intern