Dug is always stressing to me that his travels are work, NOT vacation. Though I can't imagine traveling the world with Dave Attell and Insomniac for 4 seasons was all work and no play. I'm not a jealous person, which comes in handy when my husband's off on a tropical island covering super models, or hiding mics on major stars like Julia Roberts. But, I do feel a twinge of jealousy for the travel he gets to do, since I've been at home with preschoolers for five years. Kinda puts a damper on jetting off around the world! This week, for a change, he's actually in town.
Today he's working with the Chicago police. These contacts will be handy if our snarky 3 year old daughter ever steals a car in the future or comes down on the wrong side of that thin blue line. Back in the day, Dug did ride alongs for "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol". He wore a bullet proof vest and jumped from moving vehicles to run down suspects and mic the take down. I'm glad he's on tamer shoots at the moment.
Over the years, he's had some crazy opportunities on police investigations, like flying in a helicopter equiped with FLIR (forward looking infrared). He got to look down on the city and see every heat source from a lightbulb or body to a basement grow room. Once he was at an early morning event where approximately 30 large boxes of marijuana were scheduled to be burned. The palate burst into flames in the air enroute to the furnace, catching the crane on fire. All the cardboard and plastic evidence bags set off the EPA warning sirens. That embarrassing segment never aired. Dug has been behind the scenes at the FBI, a military communication hub and crime labs. He's also shot the President of the US twice (and yet the man lives).
At the last Bush shoot, all media people were asked to leave their gear for the bomb sniffing dogs and exit through a security check point. Dug and the cameraman came back several hours later to rumors that secret service was looking for someone with a "bag full of knives" and knew they were busted. They both had a couple of Bucktool, Leatherman, Swiss Army Knife type items in their gear as work tools. Fortunately, secret service decided Dug wasn't going to make an assasination attempt with a pocket scissor, nailfile or toothpick, so he wasn't arrested.
Recently, Dug's worked on episodes of "Cold Case Files". He used to shoot "FBI Files" and "New Detectives". Some year I'll write a mystery series and all his technical, in-the-field knowledge will be invaluable. That's about the time he'll retire and stay with the kids. Then I'll be the one on book tour, bitching about hotel rooms in endless strange cities, and wondering why I was so eager to travel back in 2006.
