to_hash.rb

class Balls
  
  def initialize()
    @name = 'blah'
    @caption = 'blah'
  end
  
  def to_hash
    self.instance_variables.inject({}) do |a, e|
      a[e[1..-1].to_sym] = self.instance_variable_get(e)
      a
    end
  end
  
end

lil shorter. "better"? dunno.

oh yeah, this might be better only because i didn't use Hash#symbolize_keys!, which is a Rails extension

Thanks rick!