I probably should have done more reading.. or taken the negative reports about the G3100 more seriously.
Since getting this router a couple days ago it randomly drops connections like others have observed.. the light goes to a beige color.. and within a couple minutes starts working again.. but it's long enough to disconnect everyone in the house.
I was not experiencing this issue before, and nothing else has changed with my fios environment, i just wanted a new router.. previously i was restarting my old router every couple weeks, and it was just generally too slow.
I have noticed so far, that this happens when i'm connected to my work VPN.
and the only messages in the log that appear to be even remotely relevant are about DNS bind attacks.. but it doesn't say anything about rebooting or dropping connection
Has Verizon acknowledged these issues? this is a $300 router.. i really expected it to work better