Capturing and re-raising failures

############ 1st Attempt ############
    def connectionLost(self, reason):
        if self.dead: # Only set by callLater used to time out
            self.factory.clientConnectionFailed(
                self.transport,
                Failure(TimeOutError(self.factory.timeout),
                        TimeOutError,
                        reason.getTracebackObject())) # also tried reason.tb  here :(
        else:
            self.killer.cancel()
            self.poemReceived(self.poem)

############ 2nd Attempt: ###########
    def connectionLost(self, reason):
        if self.dead:
            try:
                try:
                    reason.raiseException()
                except: # This makes me very uncomfortable!
                    raise TimeOutError(self.factory.timeout)
            except TimeOutError:
                self.factory.clientConnectionFailed(self.transport,
                                                Failure())
        else:
            self.killer.cancel()
            self.poemReceived()