Have tried various alternatives.. check this website www.worryfree-vacations.net great placement of ads.
I really like the ad placement, however, I think Google will have a problem with it at some point. It looks to me like you are enticing people to click on the links by saying they are 2011 deals. That is something I would watch out for because it could come back and hurt you later.
You should have spent time reading adsense's tos and adding content to your site instead. Your ad placement is nothing special, your site's alexa rank is over 8 millions.