The laptop arrived on the original date of today.  Thank you Dell!!!
I ordered an Inspiron 15R on January 4th with shipping on January 7th with delivery by the 14th.  Later I get a delay for delivery until Jan 17th.  I ordered it for my brother's birthday on Jan 13.  Today I get an e-mail that the delivery date is not estimated to be January 24th.  I did not order anything special for hardware.   I have been a customer since 2005 with nothing but good experiences with Dell but maybe they are outgrowing their capacity to keep up with orders.  It will be awhile until I order or recommend another Dell computer to anyone.  
Order Status Delays