ENH: Avoiding conversion of integer to NumPy Scalar.
There is a bottleneck in scalar operations, when trying to extract the
underlying C value from a Python integer/float. I have avoid conversion
for know integer type but extracting its value.
Extracting longlong value without converting it to NyType
Moved int test cases to pr#3592
Added PyInt_CheckExact for python < 3 and error check for PyLong_AsLong
Replaced PyInt_As_Long with PyInt_AsLong and  errorchecking
Check for error value by PyLong_AsUnsignedLong as (unsigned long)-1
MAINT: Update pavement.py script.

Remove builds for Python 2.6 and 3.1
Update release notes path to doc/release/1.9.0-notes.rst.
Set LOG_START to 'branch-1.8.x'
Merge pull request #3567 from arinkverma/avoid_conversion

ENH: Avoiding conversion of integer to NumPy Scalar.
Merge pull request #3672 from charris/update-pavement

MAINT: Update pavement.py script.