Newbie networking problems; pppd with Woody.

[Barry Mathieu <barkatbarry@mindspring.com>]

I've been frustrated for a long time about a problem I'm having with DNS
lookup. The first time I try to initiate internet connection with pppd I
consistently receive the following type error:

barry@debian:/etc/ipmasq$ ping pop.mindspring.com
ping: unknown host pop.mindspring.com

-or- 

fetchmail: couldn't find canonical DNS name of pop.mindspring.com
fetchmail: Query status=11 (DNS)

On a second attempt to initiate the connection, the error always goes
away. I do believe this is some type of DNS error with pppd, but I'm not
adequately knowledgeable about networking & DNS to understand. I'm
running Debian 3.0, with 2.2.20, and ppp 2.4.1.uus-4.

I'm in the midst of trying to get ipmasq working and I think this problem is
preventing from achieving success. I'm a very frustrated newbie.

My /etc/resolv.conf file:
domain debian
nameserver 207.69.188.185
nameserver 207.69.188.186

How can I troubleshoot? 

Please help,
Barry Mathieu