[CentOS] remote yum update aborted with session closing - won't boot

Tue Jul 1 22:19:32 UTC 2014
Robert Moskowitz <rgm at htt-consult.com>

I was upgrading a system remotely from Centos 6.3 to 6.5 via VNC. Now 
the system will not boot.  Or at least without bringing up the console 
and switching to the older kernel.  The last messages I see in 
/var/log/messages are:

Jul  1 14:53:51 rigel yum[3220]: Updated: scl-utils-20120927-8.el6.i686
Jul  1 14:53:53 rigel gnome-keyring-daemon[2710]: dbus failure 
unregistering from session: Connection is closed
Jul  1 14:53:53 rigel gnome-keyring-daemon[2710]: dbus failure 
unregistering from session: Connection is closed
Jul  1 14:53:54 rigel gnome-keyring-daemon[2822]: dbus failure 
unregistering from session: Connection is closed
Jul  1 14:53:54 rigel gnome-keyring-daemon[2822]: dbus failure 
unregistering from session: Connection is closed

yum update reports 'No Packages marked for Update'.

How do I trouble shoot this?  I am assuming that I only got a partially 
completed update.