[Ruby] acts_as_state_machine question

[Frederick Alger]

Does anyone actually use this Rails plugin?  I'm finding  
documentation, examples, and testability rather scant.

I'd love to hear if someone uses this *and* they can pass their unit  
tests, because I'm stuck as a toad on a tire.

I've re-factored the order processing end of a Rails store I built to  
use acts_as_state_machine to enforce workflow stages of an order, a  
very simple transition table:

			| -> confirmed -> shipped
placed  -> 	|
			| -> cancelled

In code:
=============
class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
   acts_as_state_machine :initial => :new

   state :new, :placed, :confirmed, :cancelled, :shipped

   event :place do
     transitions :from => :new, :to => :placed
   end

   event :confirm do
     transitions :from => :placed, :to => :confirmed
   end

   event :cancel do
     transitions :from => :placed, :to => :cancelled
   end

   event :ship do
     transitions :from => :confirmed, :to => :shipped
   end

  #...
end
==============

Very simple, no?  However, I'm having the damndest time getting my  
unit tests to pass, because my Order objects have an initial state of  
nil.  When I create an Order from the console:

 >> o = Order.new
=> #<Order:0x2684a74 @new_record=true ... >
 >> o.state
=> nil

If I then fill that Order with valid data:
 >> o.attributes = Order.find_first.attributes
 >> o.state
=> nil
 >> o.place!
NoMethodError: You have a nil object when you didn't expect it!
The error occured while evaluating nil.to_sym
     /Users/fred/Sites/Store/config/../vendor/plugins/ 
acts_as_state_machine/lib/acts_as_state_machine.rb:146:in  
`current_state'
     /Users/fred/Sites/Store/config/../vendor/plugins/ 
acts_as_state_machine/lib/acts_as_state_machine.rb:89:in `next_states'
     /Users/fred/Sites/Store/config/../vendor/plugins/ 
acts_as_state_machine/lib/acts_as_state_machine.rb:89:in `next_states'
     /Users/fred/Sites/Store/config/../vendor/plugins/ 
acts_as_state_machine/lib/acts_as_state_machine.rb:93:in `fire'
     /Users/fred/Sites/Store/config/../vendor/plugins/ 
acts_as_state_machine/lib/acts_as_state_machine.rb:201:in `place!'


acts_as_state_machine sets the initial state in before_create, so I  
tried using Order.create instead of Order.new, with the same result.

Insights greatly appreciated,
- Fred Alger.
@: fred at fredalger.net