First post... Getting back into swimming.

Hello, my name is Chris and I am addicted to swimming. I am 29 and I haven't been in a pool for 14 years or longer, until about a month ago; I haven't done any competitive swimming just lessons up until the lifeguard course, but I got bord with the lessons and stopped just before getting certified. Since starting back I have been going almost everyday for about 3 weeks straight now. I have been doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for almost 3 years now, but only been able to go 2-3 times a week, and I needed to do more cardio. I am a bigger guy, 6'1" was 255lb +/-, so running always lead to sore knees after 2 weeks of running, I would have to take a week off to recover; and BJJ with a sore knee sucks. Swimming has been a lot of fun, and I have already seen some great results, in the 3 weeks I have gone from a 40 in pants to a 36, and last time I weighed myself at the gym a week or so ago I was down to 246lbs, so I am probably less than that now. I have leaned out a lot, but I still have a gut from all the binge drinking I did as a kid, so was a little embarrassing to go to the pool the first couple of times, but it is what it is and I am over it now, and it has firmed up enough that it isn't hanging over my swimsuit. As I am a bigger guy with two demon tattoos on my shoulders (I got more than 10 years ago), I like to wear colorful swim suits just to show that I am not a super serious scary guy; my favourite suits right now (I have two of each, ya I went a little crazy) are the Arena Mahogany, I have one in navy and one in red; and the TYR Checkered in Navy and Orange (I just ended up with 2 because (both placed were back ordered and I forgot to cancel one, glad I didn't), oh and they are jammers, as I couldn't pull off a brief at this point in time. One question regarding gear though, I got the navy pair of Arenas here: www.team-aquatic.com/.../index.php and they called them Bahogany, which I can't find anywhere, and on my other pair were clearly marked Mahogany; also the name pair has waternity printed on one of the legs, whereas the red pair does not; I got the red pair from a different store and they actually came in an Arena box... I dunno, could the navy pair possibly be knock offs? On to the actual swimming; my first day back in the water was a little funny... instead of taking it slowly, I decided to slip into the deep end, luckily it is only 7', and I could barely swim; I could do the *** stroke but I wasn't comfortable putting my face in the water, I got the Finis simmer's snorkel to try and help, but that thing is a death trap and I can't use it, at least not right now. My kicking sucked, I would try to kick fast doing the crawl or freestyle and I would go no wear... I got a pair of the Finis Zoomers Gold, and they are awesome; they are practically training wheels for swimming, I am able to keep myself moving forward so I could focus on technique and breathing properly. I just had a couple of questions, 1) when I am doing the crawl and I turn my head to breath I always get water in my ear; I wear a swim cap because it stops water running down my face when I try to breath, but it doesn't completely cover my ears. 2) When I was swimming today my nose was kind of swollen inside, so I was having a hard time breathing out under water (everyone was swimming slow, so I was trying to slow my breathing which made it even harder), once the lane cleared a bit and I could swim hard/fast I could breath a lot better... are there any recommendations for try to swim when your nose is constricted, should I just try a nasal spray? and 3) when I do the back stroke or practice kicking on my back, I find that I always swim to my left and into the rope(?), I try to use a marker on the ceiling but none of the pools I have been to have anything that runs in line with the lane... so any tips on swimming straight on your back would be great. Sorry for the first post being so long, I just wanted to give a bit of a back story; this is also the best swimming forum I could find; but to make up for it you can see how serious I take swimming in this pic. img.photobucket.com/.../meswimming.jpg