So after some further investigation I discovered 2 things: 1. ActiveRecord pluralizes "Human" to "Humen" not "Humans"... Interesting... 2. If I move all the ActiveRecord related setup junk to a separate file and then require it, everything works just fine.
So it seems some of the ActiveRecord voodoo interferes with the Shoes voodoo. Good talk. -Garret Buell
