Hmm, I powered it back on since I'm in an area without t-mo service (I know, I could have also removed SIM) and tried sending a text message and it appears in /var/spool/sms/outgoing directory.

But... there is nothing in there for the contact card SMS that is giving me trouble, so either it eventually stopped retrying or some other process keeps inserting it into the outgoing queue.

I'll have to wait until I get back into cellular range to see if the latter happens again.