Something you may consider is reducing the padding on the nav so that it takes up less of the screen real-estate. Changing the padding on the a.nav:link, a.nav:visited style from 1.2em padding to 0.5em padding puts it to a more "normal" size. You'll probably have to also adjust an a.nav:hover style similarly.
Also, I agree with mezangath, the hover color on the nav is a bit bright. Toning it down, maybe to something more like a maroon would be great. Maybe even something like #FF2222 instead of #FF0000.