@walendo, AMEN! I am hoping I am included by March 31st. 
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I would speculate that once the ball is rolling, the company would not allow that momentum to diminish. Everyone has busted their arse to achieve shipping, and I think Dan would be remiss not to provide the team an appropriate celebration of that threshold - but like liberty in the Navy… “Be back onboard by the break of dawn.”
I think the initial “deadline” is the hard one to make, if they can do that - the next one should be much easier.
Unless a quality issue surfaces during initial shipping, I would be confident of receiving the order as expected.
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Don’t forget: if you’re venting outside, and are in freeze-prone climates, don’t leave the vent hose connected to the outside after you’re done cutting. This might seem obvious, but if you’d planned for a filter, it might not have occurred to you yet.
(Experience shared here: Vent Specifics)
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The voice of experience. Thank you for sharing that lesson!
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Thanks for that. As someone who was planning for the filter and hadn’t actually even considered the returning cold air issue, you might have just saved me and my 'forge from a very sad winter.
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And, of course, the coolant in the tube will affect this–I can’t remember what the latest word is on what that’ll be, but I doubt the GF team are using pure water. Even if there is an antifreeze component, I’d still recommend a gate, if only for your own comfort/heating-cooling cost minimization.
Edited to cite @dan on this:
Not water: Water Cooling
Blast gate still recommended: Winter issues
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You can probably make one yourself once you have your Glowforge!
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Is it just me, or does @dan have a particular talent for making innocuous things sound really ominous?
I mean sure, it’s probably just some other cooling fluid, but it soundly suspiciously like he might be having the GF engineers cool our lasers with tenuously contained Lovecraftian horrors.
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I once had a hewlett-packard printer that was possessed with electronic gremlins.
- H.P. Lovecraftian horrors. -
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I’m guessing something like a coolant and water wetter or purple ice combination.
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He’s the Father of two energetic kids, I’m sure he has experience in making things sound ominous to prevent really bad ideas turning into really bad mistakes.
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There once was an engineer type that converted a VW Cabriolet to electric drive. To cool the motor controller he used propane as a phase change coolant. It would go into the controller as liquid and come out as gas. Then it would turn to liquid again in the heat exchanger. Not what I would do. Let’s hope @dan and company are not considering this fluid for cooling! - Rich
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I think air conditioners switched to butane when CFCs were banned.
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Too many years ago…you are correct, he used butane to cool his controller. The butane turned to gas (phase change) and cooled the heat sink of the controller. The problem…if any of the gas escapes and contactors clack*clack SPARK! BOOM. Not good. To his credit, he did use sealed contactors and it was ventilated with forced air to disperse any gas. - Rich
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All of this nervous chatter will abruptly dry up when real Glowforges are occupying our attention
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Kitchen-size butane refrigerators reportedly use about one small lighter-refill canister worth of liquid/gas. Enough to make a big whoosh. But before CFCs and HFCs the “safe” refrigerant was anhydrous ammonia. I can’t wait till they work the kinks out of the acoustic ones.
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Anhydrous ammonia? Really?! - Rich
We’re trying to avoid making more promises, so all we’ve shared is the “expect by” dates. Also, I hear Tahiti’s nice this time of year.
As I’ve always said, though - getting you your Glowforge ASAP is the second most important thing to us, eclipsed only by making sure your Glowforge is awesome.
We’re using something very expensive and very magical. 
(Seriously, I’ll share more about it later, but it’s something we put a lot of effort into getting right)
There are those who say I respond to cold as others do to a bad odour, and I am the last to deny the impression.
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Anhydrous ammonia is still used in refrigeration systems today. It isn’t much fun to work with, but at least you know when you have a leak
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Thank you so much for the update @dan!
It’s updates like these, and statements like this:
that gives me absolute confidence that you will deliver a stellar product! I don’t mind waiting for that. It will be so very worth it in the end 
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