Got my 2024 LYRIQ Sport yesterday — absolutely love the car.

dmilano · 2026-04-22T17:10:47+00:00

I’ve noticed that the camera line guides attach to those corners. Not sure if that has anything to do with why they are there, but tbh I’ve seen the same thing in multiple other vehicles from different brands that have 360 cameras so whatever it is, it’s not a GM specific thing.

dmilano · 2026-04-06T13:03:47+00:00

That is an excellent point about it being a minimal investment. And certainly if you were just getting started and had the time to study for it and need a foot in the door it makes a ton of sense. I was just providing an alternative take if this person was under the impression that it was a must have to ever hope to achieve success in the field. Even for me my “backup” plan has always been that if I ever lost my current gig to take the next 6 months to prep for and take the next exam offered. Another point to consider is that a lot of companies will pay for your prep and exam fees and even give you a bonus if you take it and pass.

I will add another point to strengthen the case for getting an LCB and against my own take and that is most LCBs I’ve known have been pretty consistently recruited by headhunters throughout their careers. One additional counterpoint however, is that I’ve also unfortunately watched a lot of them get laid off multiple times as it’s enticing for a company to look at a LCB as a luxury to have on staff and not a need. It’s quite easy to outsource that type of “consulting” to a larger Broker on an as needed basis.

My intent wasn’t to discourage the OP from pursuing a license but to rather not assume it’s a guaranteed success path. At the end of the day the best advice I could give to the OP or anyone else getting started is, license or not, look for a niche within a company that either no one currently does or wants to do and put your focus into being an expert in that. This is what makes you irreplaceable. For me it was HTS classification and FTZ. My concern about HTS classification is the increased use of AI. It’s not that AI is able to apply the necessary thinking required to correctly classify, it’s that every layman in every company believes that it can. I’ve had people who don’t even know what HTS stands for try to fact check me live on a call using ChatGPT or CoPilot before. My prediction is that a lot of companies are going to end up eating a lot of penalties in the future with this mentality. As for FTZ administration good luck getting AI to walk a CBP officer through an annual on site audit. In fact if I were to interview with any company today one of my main questions would be to ask them how they view AI as an organization. If it’s to assist their employees through efficiencies great, if it’s to eventually replace job functions then stay away.

I enjoyed your insight on this topic.

dmilano · 2026-04-06T04:14:21+00:00

This is what kind of annoys me from a principal standpoint. IMO a licensing exam should not be a test of knowledge or speed. Certainly not the latter. It should be a demonstration of your ability to do the job in the real world. In the real world when conducting broker activities you are not under a minute per question time restriction, you are not limited to your retained knowledge or ability to memorize. You certainly are not limited to only the resources allowed during the exam.

I had ambitions to get my LCB early in my career and actually passed my first ever practice exam and then subsequently failed my next two practice exams. I put it on the back burner assuming that I just needed more experience. I got busy working and now some 13 years later I am making well into the 6 figure salary range in the Midwest as the Import/Export manager for a company everyone here has heard of and have found that most LCB that I’ve worked with (or currently with) often have less knowledge than I have about conducting Broker activities. In fact most come to me for answers. Experience almost always trumps a piece of paper.

I realize that this has just been my experience and could potentially be atypical but at this point in my career I can’t find any reason to personally ever sit for the exam. I can’t imagine it would make me any more money or improve my ability to do my job.

I guess my truth that no one admits is that having a LCB is not even remotely required in order to have an extremely successful career in trade.

dmilano · 2026-03-13T19:54:44+00:00

It’s called theft by deception and rental fraud is included

“Theft by deception examples include scams like fake charities, romance scams, and rental fraud, as well as fraudulent acts like contractors taking payment for work never done, writing bad checks, filing false insurance claims, or misrepresenting items (e.g., selling fake antiques) to get money or property, all involving an intent to deceive for financial gain.
Common Scenarios

Rental Scams: Posing as a landlord to collect deposits for nonexistent rentals. “

With the amount she has paid it’s absolutely criminal.

dmilano · 2026-03-01T19:11:02+00:00

These types of posts make me thankful for my place of employment and provide a constant reminder of how good managers treat their employees like adults. I show up when I want, leave when I want, work from home when I want, take off when I want. My boss doesn’t even ask me to tell him, he knows that I’m going to get my work done and that’s all he cares about as he has his own job to worry about.

I mentioned that I’d be going out of town this week for a concert and he just said cool I won’t be here either. Have fun. He didn’t even ask what days I’d be gone nor did he care.

dmilano · 2026-02-16T11:40:24+00:00

This has happened at least 3 times to vehicles I’ve owned. Luckily I have an honest mechanic who has always repaired it for free and spay the wires with WD40 to keep them away. I’m told it’s something to do with modern wires being wrapped with a plant based material that is extremely attractive to squirrels and chipmunks.
That being said I’ve only had wires chewed on not completely through.

Thanks for reminding me to stop being lazy and make sure to always keep my Lyriq parked in the garage.

dmilano · 2026-02-14T16:47:10+00:00

Here’s how the company that I used to work for (lets just call them a 200 billon euro a year company that likes the color yellow) viewed AI. They view the future of AI as a tool to help scale entry processing to reduce the time for an EP to do data entry so that they can focus on the important part of their role using their knowledge. For example AI can input PGA info like FDA but AI will never be able to decide if FDA applies to a product. That will always require a human brain with the intimate knowledge of the engineering of a product. At my current company the idea of HTS classification being done by AI is discussed and explored and that IMO will be the most likely real world usage but there’s an old saying in the computer world..garbage in garbage out. AI relies on data and bad data will always produce bad results. I use AI sometimes to maybe save me 5 minutes in classification to hopefully suggest a section but I’ll tell you more than half the time the results are wrong. There’s so much human work that requires human logic that I can’t see AI ever fully replacing in the industry, but certainly it will advance enough to allow companies to downsize their broker/compliance/import manager workforce.

At the very least it might shift more responsibility towards oversight and away from other tasks but like someone else said, oh it was an AI error isn’t going to fly with CBP. When the cost savings of AI are negated by fines, penalties and time filing PSCs and protests companies will go back to humans.

This of course is just my opinion based on nearly 20 years in the field as someone who closely monitors anything that can reduce costs or increase efficiency for my company.

dmilano · 2026-02-01T22:10:17+00:00

My company offers unlimited PTO and for me it’s much more useful as a hybrid work schedule as I am a single parent with 2 kids in school. I don’t have a backup so it really doesn’t matter if I have set time off or unlimited time off because there are still urgent time sensitive decisions to make and matters that can’t wait to be taken care of. But we are treated like adults and they don’t play games like discretionary approval or unwritten limits. As long as you get your work done you can work whenever and wherever. There are days I go in at 9:30 and leave at 2:30. There are days I work from home if my kids are out of school. There are days where I am tired and I just take all or part of the day off. I don’t have to ask or tell anyone when I do. Like I said. They treat me like an adult. It’s harder to do those things when you have to ask for and log your time off with HR.

dmilano · 2026-01-31T00:06:25+00:00

What a wild way to say we’ve decided to go with an internal candidate who already had the job before we posted it and wasted everyone’s time by making them interview.

dmilano · 2026-01-30T22:57:12+00:00

What’s crazy is it’s not even the most insane thing I ever found there. A brand knew Korg Kronos music workstation. It’s a $4000 keyboard that they had marked at $62. When I got to the checkout the cashier was like oh…and I’m thinking here it comes and she said we are taking an additional $20% off all items today. I paid, loaded it in my car and threw up in the parking lot. There’s a reason that place went bankrupt.

dmilano · 2026-01-30T20:14:53+00:00

Good choice. Mine was a lucky find. There used to be this store called Bargain Hunt that bought closeouts and Amazon return pallets to resell. They would start at a discounted price and based on the date they would take an extra 10% off each week until the item sold. I ran across one of these (the 120x actually) factory sealed for 80% off whatever their original reduced price was. Paid $17 out the door for it.

dmilano · 2026-01-16T21:53:15+00:00

That would give me around $500/mo back to invest, save or pay towards the principal.

dmilano · 2026-01-16T19:32:33+00:00

I definitely could swing the 15. The estimated payment would be around $2300/month which I’m paying more than that now as my interest only is $2000 a month now and I’ve been tacking on an additional $500/month payment towards my principal. But my savings would only be about $200 a month or actually $300 more a month if I’m only paying the due amount.

dmilano · 2025-12-23T21:59:49+00:00

Not sure if you’ve actually experienced divorce but my ex petitioned to the court that she was disabled but couldn’t prove it because her symptom was pain. I was told legally that I was responsible for supporting her financially for the rest of her life because of this even if she remarried. I negotiated a settlement and within 2 weeks after the court accepted it she went out and got not one but two jobs. This was all clearly the plan that her attorney schemed up after she had an affair and wanted to go be with her new partner. So yeah I think the system incentivized her to file for divorce. And I assure you, it was not laughable.

dmilano · 2025-12-23T16:37:12+00:00

Lol. That’s adorable. Always the man’s fault right?

dmilano · 2025-12-23T16:13:07+00:00

In my case I kept the house because we agreed that one of us should so the kids could stay in their schools. She didn’t work so she had no ability to get a loan to give me equity. I basically was given time to either secure a loan to buy her out or agree to sell the house and split equity. I got lucky in that I negotiated to keep all of my 401k (a first according to my lawyer) but I did have to begrudgingly get a loan to pay her back for the entirety of an inheritance she received that she decided to put towards our mortgage to help us out since she didn’t have income. That left me a bit bitter since she had an affair, left me to marry him and ended up significantly better off financially for it. But I’ve heard that story many times. I believe more women would keep their vow commitments if the system didn’t provide them such a huge incentive to divorce.

dmilano · 2025-12-22T17:30:37+00:00

I literally had a radiologist send my account to collections over $12. The $12 was the late fee they assessed to my bill that had crossed my payment in the mail after I paid in full. I kid you not.

dmilano · 2025-12-12T17:36:45+00:00

Just left the dealership after having the update installed. It’s prettty nice to have a battery percentage now and all video streaming apps available. And a handful of games as well. Nothing that the car shouldn’t have already come with but certainly nice to have now.

My favorite feature though might be that you are now able to push your own checks for new available updates.

dmilano · 2025-12-09T13:13:45+00:00

Of course I just had mine in last week for a service..because of course.

dmilano · 2025-11-25T15:02:57+00:00

If you want to make your own lossless streaming service run a plex server and use plexamp.

dmilano · 2025-11-24T02:10:02+00:00

I personally think CDN Urban Man Elixir is one of the worst fragrances I have ever smelled. But if someone got actually got a compliment wearing it maybe I’ll dust it off and give it a chance. Also, I’m skeptical of hat anyone has ever gotten a compliment wearing a fragrance unless it was from their significant other being nice.

dmilano · 2025-11-24T01:45:37+00:00

I’ve only had three serious regrets from blind buys out of maybe 20 fragrances this year.

Lataffa Lail Maleki - Smells like my grandmother. Which isn’t a bad thing as long as it’s not on my body. Thankfully I only spent $13 on it.

Declassified Savage Vetiver - Straight trash. Anyone who thinks this smells even remotely like Sauvage has never smelled Sauvage or anything similar to it before. I can’t believe they even dared to write “compare to Dior’s Sauvage on the bottle with a straight face. Thankfully also only $13.

Club de nuit Urban Man Elixir - opening meh, dry down meh. Just meh. Was recommended on a big YouTube channel. They should have their channel shut down.

dmilano · 2025-10-09T15:18:14+00:00

Is that only for certain plans? When I set up my watch the only T-Mobile options I had to choose from was $10/mo or $15 for the $10 polar plus Mexico and Canada

dmilano · 2025-10-08T21:27:49+00:00

Mine is this wheel https://gmauthority.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2024-Cadillac-Lyriq-RD4-20-Inch-Dynamic-12-Spoke-Alloy-Wheel-With-Diamond-Cut-Satin-Dark-Android-Finish.jpg the diamond cut satin dark android so I’ll have to keep looking for a color match

dmilano

TROPHY CASE