Ok, I don't know if this problem is consistent with official pro mini's, but I have a couple that I will test.  What I had to do to get these two tutorials working 

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/arduino-wireless-communication-via-the-electric-imp/all

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/wireless-arduino-programming-with-electric-imp/all

was program my arduino uno with ArduinoISP and then flash the arduino pro mini as an arduino uno using the arduino uno as an ISP programmer.

Then remotely programming the arduino pro mini was successful w/o error.  

I should have the electric imp code pushing data to xively this weekend and will post it on my github then.