After reading these comments, I am feeling much better about my new "precious". It has made it to Louisville, KY so I guess I am in the first group. BTW it did take the same path I have seen above from China to Hong Kong to Anchorage, AK to Louisville. It has been there since 12:15 am Saturday morning.
The UPS site has issued a statement that it is holding shipment until the 16th, so <whew> I thought it had been stolen or something.
Ordered mine at 5 pm after a 1 1/2hr on hold on the Apple business line. Had the store up to the point of payment twice online, but it never went through. Interesting that IE actually was a bit faster than Safari or Chrome (which never got past the AT&T vs Verizion question). Still, telephone was the fastest in the end.