all this is pretty annoying IMO...
better to have a site that doesn't periodically die on everyone...
Well.. yes. I can verify that this is indeed better. 
It happens at 12:15 AM-12:45 AM EST every day. I'm not entirely sure what is causing it yet. My guess is that it is caused by a backup of our servers by our host as they do a full image backup each night. The thing is that it is so consistent with timing that it has to be something scheduled.. but cron jobs don't seem to be giving any clues. I'll keep looking for answers of course.
