Creative class, hell. I'm in IT, and I have yet to take what most people would call a real "vacation." My days off are usually just spent at home 'cause that's what I can afford to do.

"...a blogger..." Is that what they are calling the unemployed of the "creative class" these days? No offense meant Jack, but I thought blogging was a hobby, not a profession.

I'll buy them gas to the state line in any direction as long as they promise not to come back.

When I was 22, I couldn't afford to go on vacation either. I was too busy working two jobs that each paid $5 an hour with no benefits. And I sure as hell wasn't whining about it to the New York Times.

When these two slackers are my age and have worked and saved for a while, maybe they too can ignore gas prices and spend a week in the Rockies, a long weekend in Seattle, a week in Central Oregon, etc.

Poor kids! Blogging and baristaring just don't pay what they used to.

I can't say I feel terribly sorry for those 2 from Portland. We do have wide open spaces right here in OR and they are farly close too.
My advice would be to get off their collective young and supposedly healthy a***s and get part time job (yes folks there are some jobs out there!)for a while to afford the gas bill to say, Bend or Pendleton to see wide open spaces.
No one ever said succcess was easy; sometimes you have to work realy, realy hard to acheive your goals.

Everyone with a Facebook page is technically a "blogger."

No offense to Jack. He's an actual blogger.

How/why does the NY Times keep finding us out here anyway?

"they were planning for 2008 to be an “epic” summer of travel"

Hey they could be future municipal planners!

They're unrealistic, delusional, make plans they cant afford, their plans don't work out and the newspaper coddles them.

Imagine if Jack Kerouac and the Merry Pranksters had to shell out for $4-plus gas (in adjusted dollars). Instead of On The Road would we have instead read "On The Tri-Met" to satisfy our youthful wanderlust and 10th grade English teacher?

Somebody please help these poor middle class white folk so they can afford their first class trip to the resort of their choice!

Oh, I'm sorry, reality's a bitch. Just another example of how white-elitist (and secretly racist!) Portland is OUT OF TOUCH.

“They're unrealistic, delusional, make plans they can’t afford, their plans don't work out and the newspaper coddles them.”

Is this the creative class that our city leaders and press so often tout? Putting a political spin on this, perhaps this is the composition of Portland’s typical “progressive” and the reason we have so many incompetent elected officials making these expensive misguided decisions.

Good grief. These are just anecdotes about people struggling with low wages and high prices. They could be any of us. Where's all the hostility coming from?

Hostility? Not hardly.

These two are 22 and 23. The fact that they can't afford an “epic” summer of travel" is not an example of struggling with low wages and high prices.

It's the reality of being 22 and 23.

My own 22 year old college daughter and friends aren't taking an "epic summer of travel" either.

Should a newspaper write about how troubling that is?

Geez!

"These are just anecdotes about people struggling with low wages and high prices. They could be any of us. Where's all the hostility coming from?"

Ah, satire!

I was encouraged to see a story on yesterday evening's news about parents shopping at second hand stores for back to school clothing and some supplies. Shopping at these local places puts money in the pockets of local merchants and our community. Simply cheaping out by buying at Costco and Walmart puts money in the pockets of the already deep-pocketed and ramps up the demand for Chinese and other imported goods, encouraging more offshoring and imports.

Most of these people should have been living more frugally and within their means long ago. It's only when a majority of the middle class are forced to cut back due to threats to their comfortable lifestyle that any major cry for change occurs. Up until that point it's easy to ignore the truly desperate and needy among us . . . to say that their condition is completely their fault (not that these two fall into that category - and I don't think they consider themselves belonging there).

I prefer to see these people standing at the bus stop fumbling with scraps of paper and asking if anybody knows where this or that agency is, looking around in complete confusion because they've fallen clean off the face of the earth and don't even know it.

Yeechhh...the dreaded hyphenated last name -- the calling card of all "creative class" females.

Lesse... I think the only 'epic' vacation I've ever taken was to Hawaii where I proposed to my wife. We're now relegated to camping with the kids.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Cry me a river. When I was 22, my vacations usually consisted of tent camping, a weekend trip on the cheap to Seattle or the Bay, or simply enjoying all there is to do here in Portland. And you know what? It was fine. I didn't bitch or whine about it.

Now that I've got a few years under my belt and a solidly middle-class career going, I can afford to do a bit more when I take time off. Nothing extravagant, but I've never let the quality of accommodations determine how much fun I have.

Not everything comes gift wrapped in a nice little box from a Pearl District boutique.

I'm with one of the above commenters--the silly hostility towards these two is absurd. It's like Grandpa Simpson and his nursing home took over the comments.

The hyphenated female blogger could not take an "epic" vacation this summer because she blew all her travel funds marching in a revolution last September:

I traveled from my little Oregon town to Washington DC on September 15th to take part in the revolution.

I bought a plane ticket with money I didn't quite have so I could march from the White House to the Capitol, joining what turned out to be nearly 100,000 people who demanded an end to the war in Iraq.

"the silly hostility towards these two is absurd."

Whatever. The fact remains the media loves to make everyone a victim, even though the majority of the subject's supposed issues is of their own making.

Like these two carbon blobs:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92592545

Back in my day we were too busy working 12 hour days at the ol' slaughterhouse to take a vacation. When I was 22 the only trip I could afford to take was a couple hours at a leech-infested pond crawling with hobos...Bwah! Now to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them....

"Back in my day we were too busy working 12 hour days at the ol' slaughterhouse to take a vacation...."

Well, of course, we had it tough! We used to have to get up out of the shoebox in the middle of the night, and lick the road clean with our tongues! We had to eat half a handful of freezing cold gravel, work twenty-four hours a day at mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our dad would slice us in two with a breadknife!

Okay, I'll stop now...

There's no "hostility". The fact that some think a few of these comments are "hostile" just shows how whipped society has become.
These two are just getting a dose of reality, one of which our public schools have not prepared them for.

Okay, I'll stop now..

And not a moment too soon.

We used to have to get up out of the shoebox in the middle of the night...

Was that shoebox in middle of motorway?

A barista and a blogger don't make enough $ collectively to be able to take a summer off and travel.

How would they do it? They seemingly exist on air alone. But behind them is a family member -- usually a grandmother or mother -- providing support(i.e. Shadow Funding).

Perhaps the shadow funding is running a little thin this year...

Jeez, what a bunch of grumpy old curmudgeons this blog attracts, with all your "back in my days."

So, back in my day, I hitchhiked up and down the West Coast several times, but I wouldn't advise that today. Gas was about a quarter a gallon and we'd pile in a big old Ford and run down to San Francisco for a weekend. The airlines had a "student stand-by" fare that was ridiculously cheap. Also, going to college was cheap, so I didn't graduate with an $80,000 tuition debt.

Give the kids a break.

On the other hand, Oregon is about the best place in the world to be during the summer and through September. No sensible Oregonian takes a vacation until it the rain gets unbearable.

Word.

Lizsbarski, Ken Kesey's gas costs weren't much different than today's $4 gallon costs, if you'd consider the inflation from the mid 60's. You need to put things in perspective.

Sorry to go down memory lane again, but I didn't have my first real vacation on my own until I was 27 after working hard for years. Yes, I had the infrequent one/two day trips to the coast, or a day of skiing. And I was happy-isn't that what it's all about?

Back in my day we wore an onion on our belt, that being the style at the time...

"Grumpy curmudgeons?"

How about "whiney 20-somethings with a sense of entitlement?"

Good for you, Gil, acknowedging the reality of 100k student loan debt for today's students. The usual grumps will complain that they never should have taken the loans in the first place, but most students take them when they are young and impressionable, and have been told all of their lives that they have to go to college to amount to anything. Must have been nice to attend college and grad school back when it was practically free.

Anyway, I went to school before it got REALLY bad. If I had to pay today's tuition, I wouldn't go.

Well, boo-hoo.

News must be a little thin on the ground in NY.

Yes, let's face it, we're just a nation of whiners. I guess Phil Gramm got that one right.

So, back in my day, when Cow's grazed in meadow's on Kruse Way. The "creative class" would take what lived under the Crap, drive to San Diego spend a week on the beach and still come home with 50 Bucks.

"Instead of spending more than $2,000 to fly their family of four to Wisconsin for the 50th wedding anniversary of Mr. Jones’s parents, they decided to drive. Round trip, the trek will cover about 2,000 miles. Their son, Eddie, is 3 1/2 and their daughter, Josie, is 15 months old."

Yippee! My one hope for all the high gas prices: parents won't be subjecting the rest of us to screaming children on the planes. 3-1/2 & 15 months. Pure hell for other travelers.
Three cheers for the return of Family Car Trips!

OMG you folks don't know jack (no pun intended) about these two yet you are ready bury them just because one is a barista and the other is a blogger and they can no longer afford a cross country trip. Oh, and they had the temerity to speak to the the NY Times. You don't have to be a bed wetting liberal sitting in your ivory tower to be elitist, conservative rednecks can form sterotypes just as quickly and often more harshly. High fuel and food prices don't care who is hurt.

Oh, get a life.

Nobody's being "hostile" toward these poor 20-something kids with no jobs and an inflated sense of entitlement.

The "fashion blogger" found a way to fly to D.C. with money she "didn't have" so that she could "join the revolution" and is now whining. Her "barista boyfriend" is also whining.

That's not "hostile"; it's just plain fact.

I didn't get to take vacations when I was their age, either.

Although in between odd jobs (laundry, warehousing, railroad track repair) I sometimes hitched to different places. Turned out that that was illegal in Sterling, Colorado. I spent a memorable evening in the jail there for hitching.

I got up to the third-floor cell block and a guy came walking up with a big grin; asked me what I was "in" for.

"Hitch-hiking", I replied. "You?"

"Attempted murder", he said.

Ah, the good ol' days!

Hate to say it dm, but there'll be lots more kids flying--we're going to be flying across the country in September with our 5 mo. old. If you're on the plane, I'll make sure she lets off an extra piercing shriek right in yr ear. Ka---zing!

Only if we could have all lived and suffered like poor Max.

Wow.

When I was a kid we walked 5 miles up hill to school in the snow. We carried baked potatoes in our pockets to keep us worm. We ate the potatoes for lunch and put the skins on our feet for the five mile uphill walk back home through the snow

Probably the reality of how this story evolved by the NYT writer, is that he had an agenda, sought the stories that bolstered his story. I wonder how many individuals he contacted in the Portland area to get his story.

We know that this routine is common by magazine, newspaper writers. I've been contacted for years with a hint or more of the story line, then helped them arrive at their conclusion(s).

Hi everyone! This is Nick (the d***g from the New York Times). I just wanted to tell you how disappointed I am by the fact that fellow "Oregonians" are berating us so badly.

-Nick

Hey Nick, Barista is not a career.
It is what I would let my high school daughter do for a summer

If these kids really wanted to see America, they could still do it with little or no money if they really wanted to. A fair amount of books and blogs are published every year by individuals and couples who decide to cross America or a few states or Europe to see if they can get by relying - like Blanche Dubois - upon the "kindness of strangers."

I agree that it was pretty stupid to use these two as a "surprising" example of people who can't take a vacation this year because of a lack of resources.

A vacation is really all in your head. At that age, my "vacations" used to be nothing more than catching the Green Tortoise to the coast and camping on the beach; it cost almost nothing. Or going to Bend and spending the weekend hiking, camping or caving. Or driving out to Scappoose, renting a cheap canoe and spending the day paddling around on the water or at the nude beach at Sauvie Island catching some rays.

We've got plenty of places to camp not far from Portland and you can even rent a Forest Service lookout or cabin for less than the cost of a Motel 6. Lots of them have kitchens and accomodate an entire family with hiking nearby.

So what if they can't drive to the Grand Canyon and fight their way through the crowds? Or stand for hours in an airport waiting to be strip searched? Given the option I'd rather stick close to home and put the money I save in a savings account.

Barista sounds much more creative than espresso jockey or line cook.

Back when I was a liquid hydrocarbon delivery specialist, we couldn't afford to take vacations either.

I could have bitched up a storm if the NY Times would have interviewed me on the topic. But I was a Socialist back then, working for the Man.

Still working fo the Man, but I'm a capitalist piggie now.

"Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be baristas..."

Nick and fellow Oregonians, take heart. We can't allow our 'creative class' to be deprived essential necessities like an 'epic summer of travel'. No, our incoming mayor, Sam Adams will make sure that those in the 'creative class' will be able to broaden their horizons. I'm sure if two young people such as these two, go to some of the council meetings (I can't go, I work), that they can convince Sam and Randy and the rest that Portland needs to set up a department and a fund to make sure inequities like this don't happen again.

Nick - congratulations on being a barista, what are you planning on doing when you grow up. As for your mate, last I checked, blogging didn't make all THAT much money. Here's a clue, you need money to pay bills AND save up to take a vacation. You get money by selling a service or product that other people are willing to pay for. There are other lessons regarding life, but will start with this one. Don't expect US to feel sorry because YOU don't have the money you need to do what you want to do. Learn a skill (or two), go out and work (Nick you are doing that you just need to do it in a profession where they pay you more for your services). Find an extra job, set goals, go for it. Oh and a big point, if you don't want to do what it takes to earn the money, then no whining.

What's that old line?...

Dear Dad,
No mon, no fun.
your son...

Too bad, so sad.
your dad

Wha' ? Huh ? When I was that age, my disposable income was obtained as told in the rollicking ribald book, 'The Berkeley-to-Boston Forty Brick Lost Bag Blues' ... I dunno, I guess do "a Google" on it, (as McCain says ... was he the one who slew McAble?). I envied peers back then (while I worked) as they lived it up all summer long in mountaintop forest fire lookout watch towers ... and it worked, inasmuch as there weren't so many forest fires ... but then, there weren't rightwing lockminds with such a rigor mortis brain-grip on their past, from their epic logger-hero youth, that they ran around arson-setting forest fires in order to afterwards jump through the flaming loophole and 'get out there, get back in the game,' and defeat those pesky enviromentalistas. That, and the forest fire lookouts worked back then because there were actually trees left in the forest for loggers to log, but now there's not.

My 'MySpace' son, yet only 21, and his buddy, drove across to Pennsylvania this summer and are making wages at a kid's camp -- Camp ComeTaSee'aTree'a, or something -- and planning to drive back to PDX at Labor Day. The two of them called it (no fooling) an 'epic road trip.'

Oh, and it isn't that the NYTimes has no other 'news' to report. It is that they are avoiding to report it.

By using up their space interposing the fluffy chaff they do give ink, instead.

(Don't think about endangered elephants. Let's talk flat-broke baristas because cops who take free lattes don't leave tips.)

Why doesn't the NY Times interview me? I'm part of the creative class, mid-40's, make six figures a year and I still can't afford a Ferrari. Blubber, blubber, blubber. Life is soooo unfair. Shouldn't someone give me a Ferrari? Shouldn't there be like free healthcare, and free private school, and like shouldn't all my bills be paid by someone else?

Why is anyone inspired to chastise or belittle the young people interviewed for the article? What sort of frustration, envy or rage is motivating you? What did the two people do or say to provoke your scorn and make you trot out your self-aggrandizing tales of hard work and sacrifice?

I sometimes read the comments on this blog because I think I get a little glimpse into the hearts and minds of my fellow Portlanders. Reading this batch of comments, with a few exceptions, has given me a pretty ugly view.

I was recently sent an email that seems appropriate for this topic....

some rules...

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem.. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

Why is anyone inspired to chastise or belittle the young people interviewed for the article?

Because delusional "entitlement thinking" is typical in "progressive" cities like Portland, and its just not the real world.

"Because delusional "entitlement thinking" is typical in "progressive" cities like Portland, and its just not the real world."

You're the one who's delusional.

The young people in the article said nothing to indicate that they think they're "entitled." They planned a vacation, realized they didn't have enough money, and then didn't go on the vacation.

That's the gist of this uninteresting story. But you and others here are trying to turn it into something else--a lesson on the follies of today's youth or a meaningful glimpse into what Portland has become.

Enough already with your fake wisdom and tough-guy insights into the "real world." Sounds to me like your own outsized ego and sense of entitlement has gotten the best of you. You're in no condition to dispense advice, even if it's in the form of a hackneyed list of "rules for living" that's been circulating around the internet for years.

I wasnt giving advice...but I can.
I would probably start with "get a real job, save some money, then talk about an extended vacation."

And no, they didnt say anything about being "entitled". But it typical with the "creative class" types that are catered to in this city.

Jon is right. This jerk actually has a JOB, and the common sense to CANCEL A VACATION HE CAN'T AFFORD. What a creep he must be, and what a drain on public good will he must represent with his presumably smug expression as he banks his paycheck. Why should our city cater to such people, especially if they have hyphenated names, which we all know are shameless affectations. Richard: pay no mind to the small-minded, self-absorbed, mean-spirited jackasses that are drawn to posts like this like flies to . . . well, whatever.

The creative-classers who have no money don't worry me much - there are enough real yuppies ruining Portland.

It's cutting edge, informative, hard news stories like this that have just about taken the NYT out of business. Profits off by over 80%, according to one source.

"Whoa, dude, like we totally don't have enough dinero for our totally epic summer trip of wonder....."

.....wow.

as i read this, all i can hear is a creaky old grandpa voice entoning, "whennn iiii wass youuur age, i had to walk to school uphill both ways! in the snow!"
these two people were chosen to highlight the pinch that gas prices are having on those who are not making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year--that it has put what would have been within reach out of range. i don't understand the vitriol or snobbery or ageism (yep, ageism works both ways). i'm sorry--because they're young, they don't have a right to be disappointed when they plan and save for something and the price of gas puts it out of their reach? because they have jobs that either were nonexistent when you "were their age" or are in the service industry, they don't deserve to even anticipate a vacation at all? in fact, they deserve to be given gas money enough to go to the state line and never return?
as has been mentioned above, these two have jobs. they planned and saved for a vacation, which, upon discovering that it was out of their reach financially, they cancelled. this is the intelligent thing to do, this is the responsible thing to do, and yet they are being villified as coddled spoiled "creative class" brats. give me a break.

"The hyphenated female blogger could not take an "epic" vacation this summer because she blew all her travel funds marching in a revolution last September"

Gee, you mean she spent what little money she had to fly across the country and support a cause she felt deeply about and now she can't take a personal vacation because of that? Holy crap, where do these entitled, creative-class, lazy hipsters get off being interviewed randomly on the street by a newspaper? How selfish of them!

You think this is bad?

Just wait until the carbon tax doubles your cost of heat, gasolene and electricity.

The cost is the little secret they don't want you to know. That's why the hide it behind cap & trade.

Thanks
JK