Fallsnewspress.com - Fallsite captures night at airport on YouTube

Ashley Klinger

by Jeff Wheeler

Correspondent

When having to spend the night in an airport, most people will desperately try to find a somewhat comfortable place to sleep. Such was not the case when Cuyahoga Falls native Ashley Klinger faced that very situation in Pittsburgh. Instead, Klinger created a YouTube video of her antics that has received national and international attention.

Klinger, age 20, is the daughter of Rick and Carol Klinger, a Cuyahoga Falls City Council Member. She graduated from Walsh Jesuit High School in 2007.

Klinger attends college at Point Park University and is a junior in the dance program. On Feb. 8, Klinger was attempting to make her way to New York for an audition to be a part of the national tour of "The Wizard of Oz".

"There was 2 feet of snow and I couldn't drive," said Klinger.

She was able to take a bus to the Pittsburgh International Airport and attempted to catch a 7:40 p.m. flight to New York's Laguardia Airport, but missed it by 15 minutes. To make the next available flight at 5:40 the next morning, Klinger was forced to spend the night at the airport.

Klinger decided to use her time alone in an empty airport to make a YouTube video of herself doing various silly and goofy acts. She used her laptop, which had a webcam built in.

The acts range from popping out of a plant, rolling by in a wheelchair, trying to slide down a carpeted ramp on a food tray, and climaxes with a segment on a moving walkway.

Watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv1va9Jdt7g.

YouTube is a free Web site where members are able to post videos they have created for others to view.

Klinger said the idea came to her after the cleaning staff of the airport told her that the children's area was one of the best places to sleep.

"How often do you get to play with the kids' stuff?" said Klinger. "You walk by it all the time but are never able to play with them."

Klinger said she and her friends often make YouTube videos with "mostly inside jokes between [them]."

While hanging out at the airport, she noticed the moving walkways remained on all night and said she "had a blast on it."

The video started getting attention from local blogs in Pittsburgh, explained Klinger. After the blogs picked up the video, the popularity of it grew, and even the "Today Show" on NBC showed part of the video.

As of March 4, the video had gotten more than 525,000 hits on the YouTube site. Klinger said it was "very exciting," and added, "things like this never really happen that often. It's like a million to one."

She said she was interviewed via Skype, a program that is used to make phone calls over the Internet, by a Sacramento morning news show and was even in an Italian newspaper.

Klinger also said that she has received a lot of positive feedback through comments on the video and social networking sites like Facebook.

She explained she has always kept in mind the idea that "If you're doing something really boring, try to make it as fun as you can."