When ever you align something you have to think about everything that is a parent to the item you are aligning. I have had the same problem with tables before I started using CSS and divs.

In this case, you have to align the first table/tr/td to "top" and then align the table/tr/td that is inside it to "top", and so on for each table after that.

Because if you only align the inside table to top - the outside table is still set to show the inside table in the middle of the column. lol, get it?