Here's something basic that I learned today. A Windows computer configured for DHCP, if it cannot contact a DHCP server assigns itself an ip in the 169.254.x.x range. If it is set to share private IPs it can still contact machines on the DHCP-denied network. Hooray. The proximate reason that this became of interest to me is because my DSL machine suddenly can't see the DHCP server for some reason. AAAAAAAARGH!
During my previous Qwest-caused outages, this IP self-assignment did not occur, so there must be some other conditions holding now. Although I'll be phoning up Qwest any minute now just to cover all my ducks. My first guess is that there is something wrong with the DHCP server itself at w-link. We'll see.