I took my laptop back up to Geek Squad at Best Buy, having decided that if I could not get e-mail to work on it today I would just return it for a refund.  Long story short, it was an issue that only COX could solve.  So I called them, and after verifying it was really me, put Chelsea on the phone with Barb. (No sense having a clueless techno-peasant trying to be the go-between!)

They eventually got it squared away with a "new" password on both the laptop and my iPad. Chelsea was most impressed with Barb (and she has had to deal with a lot of tech help folks over the phone!) Once home, Barb called me and helped me get things set on the desktop. 

Before I left Best Buy, I made sure to find Chelsea's boss and let him know how pleased I am with all the help she has given me, and before I got off the phone at home with Barb I had her transfer me to her boss's message machine; I wanted to not only pass along how pleased I was, but to let him/her know how impressed Chelsea from Geek Squad was with Barb's expertise and explanations.  So often people only contact management to complain, so it was important to me to pass along my compliments!

Patti is back home from the hospital (Zach picked her up) so I will be moving back over there in a bit.  However I do plan to sleep back here the night of whatever day Tom ends up having his stent surgery "just in case".