Once again it’s New Year’s Eve. But this time, it’s the future. 2015 is the year that Marty McFly travelled through time to see in “Back to the Future Part II” in 1989.

Then, I was 15 years old and couldn’t imagine how the world would look in “two-thousand and fifteen.” Even now, I couldn’t tell you what things will look like in 2041 (perhaps future Jesse would be kind enough to leave a comment on this blog to tell me).

There’s a great article here by leading futurists as to what BTTFII got correct, and what it didn’t. The truth is, things don’t change that much. Kristi’s Dad and I were discussing this at lunch today. We still drive the same cars and fly in the same planes as we did in 1985, and we probably will in 2041.

What changes is the nuances, and they change so gradually we don’t notice. The biggest change in the last 25 years has been cell phones, but they’re small enough that you don’t really miss them if you look at a movie from that prior era.

In 1985, there weren’t ads plastered all over the windows of fast food restaurants, toll booths, gas pumps, even the concrete poles that keep you from driving into a Wal-Mart. But now there are. It happened gradually, and we didn’t even notice.

15 years ago tonight, I was proposing to my first wife, and worrying about what havoc Y2K might wreak (other than my Windows 3.1 clock saying “Jan. 1, 100” there were few issues). I certainly couldn’t imagine then that, 10 years later, I’d be divorced on New Year’s Eve. And that night, I couldn’t fathom that I’d be happily married three years in, by 2015.