Well on Thursday June 7th the Carnival Miracle docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico about 3pm in the afternoon. I was led personally by one of the ships Pursers to be the first, and I believe only debarking passenger. I was with all my bags and could not wait to get my feet on land again. I was met by my manager, Chino Rodriguez and the Events director, Manuel Emanuelli. We drove directly to Isla Verde and the fabulous Ritz Carlton Hotel, who was also celebrating their 10th Anniversary. After about an hour of waiting for my suite, I finally put my feet up for a few minutes.

The Museum of Art of Puerto Rico , located in Santurce, was to celebrate its 10th anniversary with the event of the year GALA at the Ritz Carlton Saturday eve June 9th at 8pm in the evening, This will be an all white, formal event in the grand ballroom. I rested and dinner at the Metropol Cuban restaurant across the street. In the morning, I awoke early, in anticipation of some of my Latin Legend musicians’ arrival. Put on my bathing suit and took some sun by this fabulous poor area and ocean view. Manuel and Chino picked me up for an meeting with the Museum's executive director Lourdes Ramos and her staff. We spoke about the gala, schedule and even about bringing Sofrito to the museum’s 450 seat theater in the winter for a long run.

After lunch the band started to arrive. Audio engineer Bob Crawford, Louie Bauzo, Chembo Corniel, Lewis Kahn, my 2 vocalists Luisito Rosario and Emo Luciano, Richie Viruet, Yomo Toro, Adalberto Santiago and Nicky Marrero all arrived on schedule. I usually worry until everyone is present. The musicians from the island were to meet Junior Gonzalez and the band for a 3pm sound check Saturday afternoon. I was to do an in store cd signing for Emusica records and their vp Giora Breil was in PR for the promotion and the Gala. He had set this up over a month ago with the distributor Universal on the island. He picked me up and 2 of the band and we proceeded to Plaza las Americas biggest record store, which had huge signs and fotos of me announcing the promotion.In the window was a display of the dvd 40th Anniversary in Atlanta which is being sold without my permission and the crooked owner Fernando Fernandez also put out a package with a dvd and cd. This is the product the record store wanted to push. I refused to sign these pirated dvd’s. I asked the store managers what product they have of mine and the answer was NONE. What an embarrassment to Mr. Breil and Emusica. Shame on Universal to waste 3 hours of my valuable time. I do not gain one penny on the sale of cd’s from Emusica and was doing this for promotion for the Gala and the re-mastered Emucica cd’s that are being released monthly. Can you imagine a large record store in P.R. does not have one Larry Harlow cd. After we returned I was boiling mad but calmed myself down.

After a wonderful Japanese meal at the hotel next door the Intercontinental, I decided to stop into the casino at the el San Juan for a little bit of chance. I had good luck and most of meals were covered for the week.

Saturday started off great with some exercise in the gym and some sun until lunch. I had some business meetings and started to prepare for the sound check. All was in order when we all arrived at 3pm. This wonderful grand ballroom was being decorated for the evening in silver and purple. The balcony was enclosed in an air conditioned tent. All the caterers were setting up and we proceeded with the sound check. Lourdes Ramos was weeping when we played her favorite songs. What a wonderful digital mixing board and computer driven speakers. The very best equipment. I took a fall tripping over some monitors and put my hand out to block the fall and the other hand to protect my eye. The outcome was that I smashed my nose and bruised my upper lip. Never a dull moment. They called the hotel doctor for me but I was ok. Just a scratch on the side of my nose. I retired to rest and had dinner at Il Mulino, a 5 star Italian restaurant in the hotel at 6pm. That left me time to get dressed and clean up for our 10pm downbeat.

After cocktails and finger foods, we all gathered in the green room and waited our turn. The Brazilian band O’Brazil were first up . The stage was huge and split into two halves. There was plenty of room for 2 bands to set up, that way keeping the music continuous all night. We mounted the stage at 2 min to 10pm. We looked so fine in our white dinner jackets. Junior Gonzalez, Adalberto Santiago, Luisito Rosario and Emo Luciano were the front line and looked very sharp. We played an hour set with the hottest songs in the Latin Legends song book. Every one was dancing and having a good time, singing along the coros and dancing away on the large dance floor. We finished the first set at 11pm and Milly Quezada and her orquesta took over. Unfortunately most of the men left the room to watch the Cotto vs Judda fight in the casino for the next hour. Everyone was happy especially when Cotto won. We did our second set to a standing ovation. Closing the evening was Los Duques de Vallenato from Colombia. It all went very well and the Museum raised more money then they have ever risen before, especially when the island in going through hard times.

Sunday we all had a free day and partied in the sun and ocean all day. The band started to leave one by one on Monday morning and afternoon. I finally was starting to feel better about flying again especially when the gas bubble was gone.

Monday afternoon was the Hommy Opera meeting with Maritza Casiano at her office. Orlando Guzman picked me up and we had a really good meeting, albeit changing plans again with Maritza. It was productive, with plans for a September rehearsal ay Univ. of Puerto Rico Theater and video and record the rehearsal and the stars in a casual manner.

All is moving well but no real date to report yet. I chilled out Tuesday all day and had dinner with the director of Chanel 6, the Museum directors, Manuel and producers from PBS in PR. It lasted 4 hours and was very productive for new artistic projects with the museum. I left for the airport on Wednesday morning to fly to Miami on American Airlines and connect to Avianca for my flight to Bogota. all went well and I arrived in Bogota at 9pm in the evening. What a GALA!