Before I tell you about my vacation, I just want to say that all of our thoughts are with everyone in Texas and Louisiana affected by Hurricane Harvey. Just watching the news every night it is horrifying to see all of the damage. [We’ll soon have an important message about our “NCP Cares” community outreach program and how we’re trying to do our (small) part to help.]

I recently got back from our vacation, and boy, did we all have a great time! We spent part of the trip visiting Acadia National Park in Maine. It was absolutely beautiful! We hiked and went on a bus tour of the park, and saw some incredible things. (See some photos below, which don’t do the place justice!) We also ate lots of “lobstah.”

Have you been able to get away this year? (Or plan to sometime soon.) If so, let me know what you did or are going to do.

Monday is Labor Day, which means our offices, including the Panel Support Center, will be closed. We’ll be back at 9 a.m. ET on Tuesday, September 5.

Before we go off on our long holiday weekend, I wanted to share some fun facts from wallethub.com:

Labor Day Weekend Travel:

• 25% of Americans plan to get out of town for Labor Day weekend
• 86% of Americans plan to travel by car
• 16.1 million Americans will fly to their destination

Most popular Labor Day Weekend destinations are the following:

• New York
• Las Vegas
• Los Angeles
• Orlando, FL
• Chicago

In addition, 40.6% of Americans plan to BBQ over Labor Day Weekend.

Speaking of labor, many people have long commutes to work (I know I do!). Check out these stats, also from wallethub.com:

• 51.8 minutes: The average time Americans spend commuting each day
• 76.4% of Americans drive to work
• 0.6% of Americans bike to work
• 4.4% of Americans work from home

We hope you have a great Labor Day Weekend. And again, our thoughts are with those impacted by Hurricane Harvey.

Here are some photos I took from Acadia National Park. They’re views from some of the hikes we went on.

Every year NCP conducts a one-day off-site strategy meeting and then the following day we have a company outing. Last year we went to a Mets game, which was fun although they lost, big-time! (So what else is new?)

This year’s meeting was great; the team came up with a lot of ideas. If you ever have any suggestions to make NCP even better, please let me know by emailing your ideas to news@ncppanel.com.

As for the company outing, this year we went on a fishing trip off the Long Island Sound. A good time was had by all! Although I didn’t catch anything, it was a lot of fun hanging out together. It was a beautiful day and the scenery was awesome!

I will be on vacation next week, so I won’t be posting anything on the blog. But I’ll be back the following week.

Don’t forget, if you’re away and unable to record your purchases, please let us know by contacting the Panel Support Center at 1-800-962-6700, or email support@ncponline.com.

If you’re an NCPMobile App user, you can continue to scan while away on vacation.

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your summer!

Have a great day!

Want to know how to use the NCPMobile App? Want to know more about NCP sweepstakes?

Well, you can find what you’re looking for on NCP’s own YouTube channel! There’s a wide range of videos, from what NCP panelists do to the rewards NCP offers.

You can find the videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfrzcrOt-OMNjFi3MOGwGqQ

We’ll be adding some new videos soon, so keep checking back!

Is there something about the panel or scanning that you’d like to learn more about? Let me know and we might create a video for it!

Thanks, and have a great day!