slow startup without network

[Michael Shulman]

Hi,

When booting Ubuntu (breezy) in a network-less situation (i.e.
unplugged and no wireless around) it takes a very long time starting
the network interfaces and waiting for them to come up before finally
realizing they aren't going to.  Is there a way to configure it so it
can do this waiting in the background and continue booting the system
meanwhile?

Thanks!!
Mike