Hello.  Well, I have a partial resolution to my problem.  Turns out
that I should have read google rather than the source while searching for my
problem.  The problem is, in fact, the hardware.  This machine, a Dell D400
laptop, has a known problem where the sound card and the wireless network
card do not work together when ACPI is enabled.  Disabling ACPI does
resolve the issue.  However, disabling ACPI also turns off power
management, the ability to sleep, battery monitoring, and a host of other
useful goodies.  Wireless networking and sound are two "must haves" for me
on this laptop, so if I must live without ACPI to get them, I will.
However, is there a way to get the ACPI functionality without using the
ACPI interrupt tables?  In other words, can I pick and choose which ACPI
functionality I want to use when building or booting a kernel?
-thanks
-Brian