Why do I have a big gap in my dock?
There's no big gap in your dock. you only have 4 icons on it. The trash sits separate on the right side of the dock all the time.
Add some different app icons and it will fill up.
Why do I have a big gap in my dock?
Do you not see the gap between the iCal icon and the trash can?
Well, was there anything there before? If so, what?
Yes. I see the area. That's a normal sized dock. Perhaps you should re-size it or restart the finder or move the dock to the bottom. I'm guessing one of those options will make the dock smaller.
And run disk permissions after you do that.
There were no applications there before.
That is not the normal size dock when you have 4 icons in there.
Thats great and all but did you try what I said ?
Try adding some apps to the dock and see what happens.
Well ya got me. Do you have any add-ons ?