The vest isn't waterproof, but the zippers are very tight. It's a laptop-specific backpack as well, with a laptop cell against my back (well, with a lumbar support frame in there too) and the zipper sits away from the laptop itself, so even if I hosed the backpack down, I'd have to somehow get about 3 inches of water sitting in the bottom of it before my hardware got wet.

The vest is an AOSafety brand vest that I picked up for $10 from home depot about 6 months ago.

http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS...5X-_-100044967