It’s been a few weeks now since I got my Glowforge and I am absolutely totally completely in awe with this fine piece of engineering!
Many years ago, I wanted to “make things myself” - started out with the very basics like the classic scroll saw and soon after looked at things more ‘sophisticated’… I looked at lasers, CNCs, etc… At that time, the most logical thing seemed a CNC so I ended up getting a “Shapeoko”. I enjoyed assembling that thing over a weekend and was proud of myself 
. However, the learning curve was very steep - while I quickly understood the concept of creating designs and exporting them into svg however I never got the results I wanted… The need for advanced configuration of that machine (so it would not break my bits or even completely mess up my cut) drove me close to insanity. I probably could have gotten the hang of it were I to have more time to try things out but with a busy job and overly filled up weekends, I unfortunately never did and gave up… It started collecting dust till I donated it to a local school (kind of not wanting to see that thing around to remind me of my failure)…
Around that time, I saw an ad for a ‘desktop laser printer’ which created a lot of buzz - the “Glowforge”. I looked at the website a few times - each time more convinced I wanted it however each time thinking “is this going to be another thing I get that I can’t get my head around?” so it took a while for me to finally make the jump and sign up.
And boy have I not regretted this for one second!!! I got my Glowforge right at the time of us moving to a new house so it sat in the box for a while till it got unpacked and received it’s place of honor in the house. And it’s been the best ride of my life so far!!!
I started churning out things - a little box, an engraved picture, a few coasters with an artsy design my husband made and many more … Did I make mistakes and subsequently curse my foolishness and ignorance, yes I did, quite a few times really. But it never felt like I wouldn’t get the hang of this thing… The forum each time gave me helpful hints (to the point that I think of starting to document my own mistakes so fellow Glowforgers don’t have to do the same) and before I knew it I was able to reprint and ended up with the perfect piece…
In the meantime, I made a few things as gifts for family and friend, things I never could have dreamed of making… Do they deserve a spot in a Museum of Modern Arts, far from, but the personal touch of these things make them ever so special to the people I make them for… And THAT is what I really was hoping for way back when I started this entire journey…
Long story short, I would really like to send a big THANK YOU to @dan and the entire Glowforge team for having come up with this idea and enabling for so many people to be creative in their own way without having to be rocket scientists…
THANK YOU!!!
Bernard.