Okay... here's what's happening. I enabled my wireless settings after turning them off while I was at work and now the icon in the sys tray (or however you refer to the the icons that sit in the bottom right of the screen) is gone!
I opened the Dell WLAN Utility and the Radio is disabled, and the app auto-exits after about ten seconds. If I try to check the Enable Radio setting nothing changes even after a soft reset. I DO have wireless connectivity and can surf/post on AximSite and the web just fine... anyone got an idea on what's going on?