I was doing some research for today’s blog post and discovered that you can buy a former US nuclear missile site. Turns out that there are a bunch of people out there who’ve done that and have posted extensive YouTube videos about the process of buying, digging out and renovating an old missile base into a home for your family.
Part of me is thinking, WOW! that would be cool – my very own missile base. I grew up during the cold war and there is just a coolness factor in owning a piece of history. Kind of like owning a tank – I mean what kid wouldn’t want their own real Army tank to drive around town. It would be fun to drive to the store to pick up your groceries in one. “Thanks, just throw the chips and salsa into the turret, hang the other bags on the cannon.”
The other part of me knows that Heather won’t agree to either buying an abandoned missile silo or a tank. Well, I’m basing that on how she reacted when I told her I wanted to buy a crane. “What would I use it for?” Come on it’s a crane I could move heavy things around.
I found out about missile silos because I finished the first set of cabinet doors for the laundry room cupboards. The doors work, but they aren’t perfect. Turns out the frame isn’t square, the doors are about 1/16 of an inch too wide, and I placed the knobs so high that you can’t reach them from the floor.
A few hours of fiddling, recutting, sanding and thinking I should just start over, I got them to close – sort of – there’s a trick to it. I have more work to do.
Okay, nothing is perfect, which naturally made me think of my Methodist roots and the many quotes from John Wesley on perfection. A very Methodist thing to say would be something like, “We’re not perfect, but we moving towards perfection.” I’ve actually said that kind of thing to others. There have been times in my life when I thought striving for perfection was the perfect goal for my life.
These days, I’m less inclined to try to be perfect. It’s a really heavy burden to work that hard to achieve perfection in anything. Clearly, I’m not a perfect woodworker and getting to perfect first time fitting doors seems a daunting task. Looking at my doors and other projects, I’d settle for good enough.
Then I thought that might make a good name for a YouTube channel, “Good Enough Woodworks.” Since it was time to write a post, I decided to do some quick research. I opened a tab for YouTube and Google search and started clicking away. I looked up some Wesley quotes on perfection and after a few minutes of trying to decipher 18th century English I switched to searching for woodworking channel names.
Then I realized that I was getting nowhere on my post for the day and thought I wouldn’t write a post at all. Then for reasons I can’t explain, one YouTube search showed a channel devoted to tanks – specs, pictures, discussions, how to renovate and where you can buy a nice WWII tank.
Personally, I would kind of like a WWII halftrack and with a few more clicks I found the all M3 halftrack channel. It didn’t take long for that to escalate and presto there was the Titian II missile silo channel and a video on how to buy one.
It was at that point that I realized that my goal for the perfect post was gone.
So instead, here is a post that I hope is good enough.
Andrew's View of the Week 
That was quite the entertaining post. I need to be sure my husband doesn’t see it. He’s a history guy. He would definitely want a silo. Or a tank. Or a crane. 🙂
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If he wanted one, he’d want all three – I mean what’s a silo without a tank to protect it or a missile with out a crane to put it on the launch pad.
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So true, Andrew. Maybe you two should pull your resources.
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I’ll give him a call …
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Your research process sounds a lot like mine – it sends me down so many different paths I rarely remember what my original point was. 😉
Perfect posts are vastly overrated. Good enough posts are far better.
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It’s my new goal – write just good enough.
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Your post reminds me of how some of my days go — I jump around from one thing to another. I really don’t have ADD, but occasionally I seem to be easily distracted from the very thing I need to accomplish. And with that said….oooooh, look…a shiny thing…………..
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Yeah, easily distracted is a good term.
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Perfection is vastly overrated. Who wants to hang around with perfect people, or even achieve perfection themselves? Then there’s nothing more to strive for, or to learn. I think those who aim for perfection often achieve the least, since they’re paralyzed by their fear of not getting it right. Of course, what do I know? I’m colossally imperfect. I would be interested in a retired missile silo, though. Think of the decorating options.
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It is overrated. Part of me does that an old missile silo could be a very interesting space.
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I ran across these when I was researching the underground communities people are investing in to prepare for Armageddon. Part of me wants to buy that but don’t you try it. If Heather wouldn’t allow a crane, she’d never allow an underground luxury condo.
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Yeah, Heather won’t let me buy one, but she did seem to show some willingness to let me build a small replica of one in the backyard if I can make into some kind of gazebo or arbor structure. There would have to be lots of vines and plantings …
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YouTube it or blog it and they will come.
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Yeah, that can happen.
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Andrew, loved this post! The internet eats time and mindlessly surfing takes the biggest section of time! But what an insight into missile silo shopping! 😀😀 Who knew! Nope, I reckon Heather would not be amused at the thought!
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There are times when I think that I could write faster if I skipped the research.
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Our school used to have a 25 pounder field gun, brought back from WW1. Its barrel became the boys’ favourite litter bin and there were protests when the gun was replaced by a war memorial.
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How could they replace it? No sense of tradition.
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Wow, that sounds like the same process I use for writing blog posts! 😉
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I suspect lots of people do that. 😉
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I read a post about old missile bunkers that were for sale. I would be worried that there was contamination of some sort in the walls and ground around it and that it could be hazardous to your health. I thought this post was interesting. My dad also does woodwork and it is not easy.
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That’s a possibility, but unlikely as most were fully decontaminated before being abandoned. And if you found something, U.S law would require the Air Force to come back and fix it. Living underground without sun light and fresh air wouldn’t be all that healthy in any case.
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Yes, that is true. I am not that familiar with US law but that is good to know.
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The US military has been increasingly required by law and lawsuits to clean up a number of toxic sites. How well they’ve done that is still under debate. Still, if I bought a silo, I’d be sending soil samples out for testing – lots of testing.
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Buy the Missile silo site as an anniversary gift to your wife or her birthday. I’ll back you up.
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I’ll share your comment with Heather – I’m sure that would do the trick. Thanks!
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Enhjoyed it all, every bit. How many square feet to a missile base?
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Depends on the type of missile and how much the Air Force removed. For the Titian II, the missile bays were filled in and capped but the control centers were just stripped and the doors sealed. The control center has three 1,000 square foot levels so about 3,000 sf without excavation. But in some locations, ground water has flooded these areas so you have to pump that out first.
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