Upon closer inspection and some more googling, I found that it does in fact correspond with the times the internet goes out, but only when it shows:
Oct 13 10:15:30 check_reload_status: reloading filter
Oct 13 10:15:19 apinger: alarm canceled: 75.151.13.201(75.151.13.201) *** down ***
Oct 13 10:15:16 apinger: ALARM: 75.151.13.201(75.151.13.201) *** down ***
as opposed to:
Oct 13 09:06:11 check_reload_status: reloading filter
Oct 13 09:06:01 apinger: alarm canceled: 75.x.x.201(75.x.x.201) *** delay ***
Oct 13 09:06:01 apinger: alarm canceled: 75.x.x.206(75.x.x.206) *** delay ***
It makes sense now, and now I feel dumb for not seeing it before. I also now realize that apinger (http://freshmeat.net/projects/apinger/) is just the thing that tells me it was down. How do I figure out what is causing it to go down though? The IPs its showing are the external IPs from my ISP..