Originally Posted by
gleff
...so I assume it's something with my home connection (Verizon), but I'm not expert
Likely so. Sounds like port 25 is being blocked. This does a great job of blocking spammers and also just happens to catch lots of legit folks, too. If your ISP supports SMTP over SSL that's your best bet. Next up would be finding an alternate SMTP relay that supports SMTP over SSL.