Can you spell STUPID... I can!

One thing I have come to admire about the good old boys here in Tennessee is their down home country common sense. They think before they act and rarely have to repeat a motion unlike me. Today I realized that I hadn't checked the diagonal on the completed slab to verify it was square so necessary adjustments could be made if necessary. In the meantime I had had the guy that delivered the AAC block put pallets of block anywhere it was convenient for him on the slab. A good old boy would have anticipated this sort of thing and would have specified better placement of the pallets so they would not have to be moved until they were laid. Unfortunately I hadn't considered this and the haphazard placement of the pallets obstructed the clear view and I couldn't measure from corner to corner to check the squareness of the slab. I moved 3 or 4 pallets by hand before running out of gas and still had 2 pallets to move. I did what any tuckered out city/college boy would do... I got a bigger hammer. To be specific I got a ten pound sledge hammer and busted 3 blocks out of one pallet to create a clear shot from corner to corner (see picture, below). This is not the recommended method but I wasn't up to moving the blocks by hand and I had to know if I was still square. Happily, I was... 61' 9" both ways. After my demolition derby, I got the 4th corner block laid so tomorrow I should be able to "turn and burn"... well maybe not "turn and burn" but I should be able to get a number of the first course blocks laid in mortar and ready to glue the other 12 courses.

After a "minor" adjustment with my 10# sledge hammer I can measure from corner to corner... this method is NOT recommended.