I have seen many females, all black, with the classic red "hour glass" (way too many of them, actually) but I have never seen one like this?

It appears to be a male from what I can see of the palps. There's more than one widow spider, your location could help (you can add it to your profile).

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

Looks like it to me...........

Thanks Janet,
yes, I had looked on there...thought maybe a brown widow? but I am in northern Utah--

I'm primarily interested in learning how fearful I need to be about this spider because it is kind of 'in my way'

I've come to the conclusion it's 'probably' a Brown Widow, Latrodectus geometricus. I checked one of your photos in the plant database and found you are in Utah, which is in it's distribution or at least adjacent to.

http://www.spiders.us/species/...

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/...

The Brown Widow Spider does have an hourglass but it is typically an orange shade rather than the vivid red of a black widow

http://cisr.ucr.edu/brown_wido...

Or perhaps the Western Black Widow, L. hesperus,
males brown and can have orange hourglass

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

That seems possible!

Latrodectus hesperus ...

The preserved male has a black 'chest' where the live one has a pale median stripe on this Utah uni site .. they only show Latrodectus Hesperus.

http://utahpests.usu.edu/uppdl...

Photos on the Californian edu site show a pale stripe ..

http://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/s...

There's only one photo showing the 'chest' of the male Latrodectus geometricus ...

http://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/s...

One on bugguide of Latrodectus hesperus shows all black 'chest' ..

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...