Ok, I can telnet to it now that to some help.  I have to do the following so I can move it on to my network safely.
1. disable DHCP
2.. change the IP address

Install some additional packages:
1.  install LuCI

From there is a lot of testing that I have to do.  Can anyone give me either some scripts or help getting this thing configured.  I guess I am taking a Linux class.  I need some help.
RC

Now that you can telnet into the device, the first step you must do is change the root account password. This can be done with the 'passwd' utility. Start it from the telnet prompt. It will ask you for a new password, and once you've entered it and pressed Enter, it will ask you to confirm it by entering it again.

Changing of the root password is essential to OpenWrt configuration. Before the password is changed, the router will continue to boot into what's called a "first boot mode" where the SSH daemon is disabled, telnet daemon is enabled and several features that commonly are used are disabled.

Once the root password has been changed and the router is restarted, the "first boot mode" is disabled and you should be able to use an SSH client to connect to the device. From there, you will be able to configure the device in-depth.

As for your specific questions:

The router has two possible modes regarding DHCP. It can either act as a DHCP server, leasing out IP addresses from a specific pool to clients connected to a network, and/or it can act as a DHCP client, using the DHCP protocol to request an IP address for a specific interface from a DHCP server present elsewhere in the network.

Which of these modes do you want to configure? If it is the former, then this is done through the "/etc/config/dhcp" file. If it is the latter, then that is done through the "/etc/config/network" file.

You can edit both files with the help of the "nano" program.

This can be changed through the "/etc/config/network" file.

To manage installed applications, you use the "opkg" program. Note that since the opkg program is dependent on having Internet access (it downloads 'ipk' files from the net and installs then to your router), you will be required to configure the network essentials first before you can use this tool.

If you are facing a chicken-and-egg problem (i.e. cannot use opkg because you do not have Internet access because you do not have a program to edit network configuration files), then you can also download individual 'ipk' files from the Internet, then use the SCP protocol to transfer the file to a temporary location on your router (e.g. /tmp folder), and use the opkg program to install the application from there.

In order to do so, however, you must know exactly which packages to download and from where. It depends on what architecture you are using, and what kernel version you are running on your router.

Thanks Antek for all the help.  I made a few recommended tweaks and now it is on my network.  I just got it online and running.  It going to take a lot of work but it's time to dig in.